The NCAA proved Thursday that its new academic reforms come with plenty of backbone, as the Committee on Academic Performance denied an appeal that would have allowed the University of Connecticut’s men’s basketball team to participate in the 2013 NCAA tournament, despite not meeting the new standards.
Given the NCAA’s reluctance to bow to the will of one of its traditional basketball powers, current and future student-athletes must now be on alert: There’s a zero-tolerance policy in the NCAA when it comes to rewarding academically struggling teams with postseason play.
The NCAA’s new standards require schools to have either a two-year average academic progress score of 930 (which equates to roughly a 50 percent graduation rate) or a four-year average APR of 900. The men’s basketball team at UConn had an APR of 826 in 2009-10, which correlated to roughly a 25 percent graduation rate.
A school official told the