FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas Coach John Pelphrey shed some light Monday on the off-the-court issues he faced upon his hiring in 2007.
Pelphrey revealed during an interview on 103.7 FM The Buzz in Little Rock that 12 of 13 players on the Razorbacks' basketball team were ineligible after the spring of 2007, the semester he took over the program after the firing of Stan Heath.
"Something people quickly forget, when I took the job, 12 of the 13 guys were ineligible,” Pelphrey said. “We needed summer school to gain our eligibility."
The basketball team's grade-point average was a 2.04 in the spring of 2007, according to documents provided to WholeHogSports.com through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Pelphrey's revealing comments were the first to shed light on the program's academic concerns behind the scenes. Coaches and Arkansas administrators have primarily remained silent on the issues, some citing student privacy laws and other behind-the-scenes factors.
Pelphrey's first few weeks on the job wasn't the only time frame to contain problems in the classroom, however. The basketball team's grade-point average was a paltry 1.54 in the spring of 2008, when the Razorbacks advanced to the championship in the SEC tournament and the second round of the NCAA tournament in Pelphrey's first season as coach.
Nine players exhausted eligibility, transferred or left the program after the spring semester in 2008. Patrick Beverley left the team in August to pursue a professional career overseas, but not without stirring the pot. The then-sophomore, while preparing for the NBA draft in June 2009, told the Associated Press that a tutor wrote a class paper for him during his stint at Arkansas.
The Razorbacks did work through the summer and had better results in the classroom in the fall of 2008, building up to a 2.15 grade-point average. The team's GPA has remained steady since the spring of 2008, and the school reported a 2.33 grade-point average for the fall of 2009. The GPA last fall was the third-lowest in the Southeastern Conference, according to a report by the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader. Nine of the 12 SEC schools provided grade-point averages to the Herald Leader. Meanwhile, the Razorbacks have struggled on the court and have suffered back-to-back losing seasons.
Arkansas' grade-point average this spring is not yet available, but Pelphrey doesn't expect any bad news.
"Nobody needs summer this year to gain their eligibility," said Pelphrey, who's 51-46 in three seasons at Arkansas. "I may be speaking a little premature because all the grades aren't back in, but that's a huge difference in culture from where we were three short years ago to where we are right now. I'm very, very proud of our guys."
Arkansas is already facing the possibility of a loss of one scholarship depending on the new, four-year rolling score in the APR released by the NCAA. The APR factors retention and eligibility and the Razorbacks’ four-year rolling score was an 888 last year. The NCAA’s benchmark score, which is not subject to penalties, is a 925.
Numbers for the 2008-09 season were not taken into account in last year’s APR, but those numbers will be calculated into the new score expected to be released by the NCAA soon. Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long said he was concerned with the possibility of a loss of scholarships in an interview last May.
Arkansas has faced a bevy of transfers and departures since April 2007, directly affecting the APR. Nine players have transferred on their own or had to leave the team as a result of rules violations since April of 2007, when Pelphrey was hired as Arkansas’ coach. Not included is guard Courtney Fortson, who left the team in April to pursue a professional playing career.