OSU Athletics
Men's Basketball Loses Two Scholarships, but All in not Bleak in APR Report
By John PorentasAs expected, the OSU men's basketball team suffered a one-year, two-scholarship penalty as a result of the APR (Academic Progress Report) issued by the NCAA yesterday.
The men's basketball program suffered for two related reasons; the exodus of athletes for the NBA and the Ohio State academic calender.
Players who left OSU early for the NBA like Greg Oden and Kosta Koufos did so midway through Winter quarter. Once they enrolled in that quarter and then withdrew to move on to the NBA their academic progress ceased, and that counts against OSU's APR.
Schools on semesters do not have that problem. Players who opt for the NBA are able to complete the first semester before they are required to report to an NBA team. Not so for OSU players going to school on the quarter system, thus the Buckeyes have lost two scholarships due to what some might call a sloppy writing of the NCAA bylaw which does not account for the difficulty created by the academic calendar for schools on quarters. The men's basketball team ranked the lowest of all OSU sports programs, falling into the 1-10 percentile for all sports and 20th to 30th percentile for men's basketball.
Men's basketball will get the headlines due to the scholarship loss, but there were other programs at OSU that did quite well. In men's sports, the baseball program ranked in the 80th to 90th percentile for all sports and 90th to 100th percentile for baseball programs. Men's tennis did even better. It ranked in the 90th to 100th percentile for all sports programs and for tennis programs as well. The OSU women's cross country team ranked in the 90th to 100th percentile for all sports and for cross country, while the women's basketball team ranked in the 80th to 90th percentile for all sports and 90th to 100th percentile for women's basketball.
The NCAA assessed scholarship penalties to over 165 NCAA teams. In the Big Ten, the Indiana men's basketball team lost two scholarships, Purdue lost a men's basketball scholarship and a partial men's golf scholarship, and Minnesota football three scholarships.
Around the country, McNees State had a total of eight sports programs that were assessed scholarship penalties, Nicholls State six.
In Ohio, the Bowling Green football program was dealt a heavy blow with the loss of eight football scholarships. Kent State was not far behind with the loss of five football scholarships.
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