By JIMMIE TRAMEL Sports Writer on Jun 21, 2012, at 9:56 AM Updated on 6/21 at 5:47 PM
ORU SPORTS
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And then there were nine.
ORU’s new league, the Southland Conference, will have 10 basketball members next season. And one of them already has been eliminated from the men’s postseason basketball tournament.
Here’s the story:
The NCAA is punishing (though the NCAA calls it motivation to do better) Division I athletic teams who aren’t taking care of business in the classroom.
Because of sub-standard scores in the latest Academic Progress Report (the formula is based on eligibility and retention of scholarship student-athletes), 15 collegiate athletic programs have been banned from postseason play in 2012-13. Ten men’s basketball teams were among the casualties, including Connecticut and Southland Conference member Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Teams ineligible for NCAA postseason are also ineligible for the Southland Conference tournament, which means that Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s season will end with the final game of the regular season. Nine other Southland teams will joust for eight available spots in the league’s postseason tournament.
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s APR over a four-year period ending with the 2010-11 academic year was far below the standard. There are reasons for that and university officials spelled them out when providing background details to the Corpus Christi Caller Times.
For instance:
The 2010-2011 senior class had five members who were signed by former head coaches, but four did not graduate. And when Willis Wilson became head coach in 2011, he jettisoned four players for not taking care of academic business.
“You get penalized for bringing in good kids and letting the bad kids go,” A&M-Corpus Christi athletic director Scott Lazenby told the Caller Times. “You could have a kid who breaks laws, doesn’t go to class and, if you keep him, you don’t lose points.”
Just like when teams or players break NCAA rules, sometimes people who had nothing to do with the rule-breaking get to pay the price. And that will be the case for players on the Islander basketball team.
Wilson is a former coach at Rice. I have no doubt that he takes academics seriously. The NCAA just sent a message, fair or unfair, that all coaches need to be taking academics more seriously.
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