APR rundown

The bottom line with today’s Academic Progress Rate data release from the NCAA is that no area teams face any penalties for their performance in the 2005-06 school year. The handful that fell below the cut score of 925 (out of 1,000) remained within a confidence interval established to account for small sample size.

As Mister Press explains, money is a significant issue (as it almost always is in anything). Wealthy BCS-conference schools can throw oodles of money at gleaming academic support units and pay for well-trained specialists to help keep athletes even the slightest bit interested in academics eligible so long as athletes show some initiative on their own (like go to class). Those outside the money nexus predictably can’t do as much, by virtue of less manpower and technology at their disposal.

Ultimately, it’s a pass/fail score. But it is sort of fun to line up full conferences to take a peek at the data. A particularly amusing fact: Florida State had a better basketball score than Duke.

Here’s the ACC breakdown in football and men’s basketball, as well as the Big East in basketball. The only team in any chart subject to punishment is Cincinnati basketball, which will lose a scholarship thanks to a rudderless year featuring Bob Huggins’ dismissal and an interim coach (Andy Kennedy) with no guarantees beyond the end of that season. Even for men’s basketball — which rates with football and baseball as sports that have performed the worstin the APR’s three years — the Bearcats’ 838 score is a statistical outlier.

(Data source: NCAA)

ACC FOOTBALL

Duke978

Boston College976

Miami966

Georgia Tech959

Florida State952

Wake Forest966

North Carolina948

Virginia948

Clemson945

Maryland944

N.C. State942

Virginia Tech928

ACC MEN’S BASKETBALL

North Carolina993

Wake Forest986

Florida State980

Duke972

N.C. State947

Georgia Tech944

Boston College940

Miami938

Virginia Tech934

Virginia917

Maryland908

Clemson894

BIG EAST MEN’S BASKETBALL

Villanova993

Notre Dame977

Georgetown970

Syracuse948

Rutgers943

Providence938

Connecticut934

Marquette927

Seton Hall921

Louisville920

West Virginia915

St. John’s909

Pittsburgh907

South Florida898

DePaul893

Cincinnati838