NSU hit with APR penalties

The NCAA announced last week that four Nicholls State sports would face penalties because their four-year APR scores were below the association’s mandated 925 benchmark.

The Colonels’ football, women’s basketball, baseball and men’s cross country teams all fell below the mark, and will face penalties in the upcoming season.

But despite the poor standing of the sports in the four-year scores, only two sports at the university (men’s cross country and men’s tennis), tested below the threshold in the 2008-09 academic year. And Nicholls’ Athletic Director Rob Bernardi said that all of the university’s sports would be above that mark in the 2009-10 school year, which he said shows progress has been made, despite the NCAA report.

“We’re pleased that we made progress, because we certainly have,” Bernardi said. “We’re not satisfied, and we won’t ever be until all of our sports are above the benchmark, but we’re happy with the steps we’ve made.”

The numbers included in the report issued by the NCAA did not include the school’s scores from the 2009-10 academic year, but were rather a four-year snap shot from 2004-05 school year through the 2008-09 year.

Those scores will be factored into the report that will be issued this time next year.

The athletic director said when those numbers are included in next year’s report; the school’s scores will be much higher.

“We’re only expecting one sport to still be below the mark when this report is issued next year,” Bernardi said. “Three of those four teams were above the 925 mark individually in the 2009-10 year, and their averages will now be above the benchmark, according to our projections.”

The sport to still be left out will be cross country, which Bernardi said will always struggle in terms of APR ratings, because of the small size of the roster.

“With just seven kids, when just one leaves, for whatever reason they may have, you take a significant hit,” he said.

Men’s cross country, baseball and football all will receive scholarship losses because of their low scores.

The men’s cross country team will now be allowed to award 4.93 scholarships, down from the six they were previously allotted.

Football will only have 61.79 scholarships at its disposal, down from 63.

And baseball will lose a little more than a tenth of a scholarship, and will drop to 11.56 scholarships, down from the 11.7 they previously held.

Women’s basketball will keep their scholarship allotment, but will lose practice time. The team will only be able to practice 16 hours per week next season.

The APR is a statistic to measure academic standing and player retention inside of a program. The goal is for programs to graduate as many of their players as possible in every sport.

But a flaw in the system, according to Bernardi, is every school is measured in the same criteria, regardless of the university’s size or academic funding.

“The mission of Nicholls State is different from the mission of Stanford, but in terms of the APR, the criteria is all the same,” Bernardi said. “We’ve got to just recruit student athletes that are better prepared for college, and if we do that, we’ll be able to continue our upward trend in all of our sports … It wasn’t long ago that Nicholls was an open-admissions university. That’s changed, and I think it’s now being reflected in our academics.”

Nicholls wide receiver Antonio Robinson makes a catch during a game last season. Football was one of the Colonels’ sports penalized because of a poor APR score, but Athletic Director Rob Bernardi said the team’s scores will be improved by next season. FILE PHOTO