NCAA academic progress: Tech hoops fails; UGA passes

The Georgia Tech men’s basketball team failed to meet the NCAA minimum score for academic progress, college athletics’ governing body said Wednesday.

The NCAA said the Yellow Jackets would be penalized with the loss of two basketball scholarships. Tech associate athletics director Wayne Hogan said that penalty already has been taken because Tech reduced its scholarship allotment by two this past basketball season when it learned of the pending sanction.

The Tech men’s basketball team was the only sports squad at Tech or Georgia to fail to meet or exceed the minimum score on the NCAA’s annual report of how students are performing academically.

Georgia had the best academic showing among SEC teams in football, seven points ahead of runner-up Vanderbilt.

The Bulldogs also had the SEC’s best academic performance in women’s basketball and the league’s fourth best in men’s basketball, according to the NCAA figures.

“It’s a significant point of pride for us to have all our sports teams meet the mark and have sports like football and women’s basketball lead the conference,” Georgia athletics director Damon Evans said Wednesday night. “It’s exciting. We can’t just measure ourselves on wins and losses. I definitely love being on top on the academic side of the equation. We’ve still got room to improve, but we’ve got to be excited to be where we are.”

The Georgia State men’s basketball and baseball teams were penalized, as was the Kennesaw State men’s basketball team.

Teams must score a minimum of 925 out of 1,000 on the academic progress rate (APR). Teams face penalties if, over a four-year period (in this case 2004-08), too many players transfer, drop out, lose their eligibility, or fail to graduate. Tech’s men’s basketball team scored 914. It scored 931 last year.

Georgia State will be penalized one scholarship in basketball and it will be taken during the 2009-10 season, according to Allison George, GSU’s sports information director. Baseball took its penalty, 0.21 of a scholarship, this season.

Kennesaw State will be penalized two scholarships in men’s basketball.

Georgia Tech’s baseball team, men’s golf team and volleyball teams were praised last month by the NCAA for finishing in the top 10 percent in their sports. Georgia’s women’s cross country team received recognition, as well.

Ten teams at Tech improved or maintained their APR scores, led by the golf and volleyball teams’ perfect scores.

“While we’ll never be content with our numbers, we are pleased that the overwhelming majority of our student-athletes and teams are making strides in the classroom,” Tech athletics director Dan Radakovich said in a statement given to the media. “Credit goes to our coaches, our academic support staff and the student-athletes.”

Georgia had an APR score of 986 in women’s basketball, 976 in football and 945 in men’s basketball — all well above the NCAA requirement of 925 to avoid possible penalties. Georgia also surpassed the NCAA minimum in its other 17 men’s and women’s sports.

Georgia said its football APR tied with Penn State for the best among the nation’s top 25 teams as ranked in last season’s final polls.

Overall, 177 teams were penalized this year. Three teams — Centenary’s men’s basketball team, Jacksonville State’s football team and Tennessee-Chattanooga’s football team — were banned from the postseason next year for consistently having failing scores. It’s the first time the NCAA has used that punishment. Jacksonville State is appealing its ban.

Of the 85 football and men’s basketball teams that were penalized, 10 came from the traditional power conferences.

The SEC led the BCS conferences with five teams penalized, followed by the Big Ten (3) and the Big 12 (2).