The Hardwood: UTEP Basketball Team Loses a Scholarship; USC Infractions Report Out Tomorrow

by Adrian Mac on Jun 9, 2010 1:29 PM MDT in UTEP Miners Basketball

Big news for the UTEP Miners basketball team. No time for a full post right now, but here are the key things Miner fans need to know right now.

It's Here: ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd reported on his show this morning that the NCAA Committee on Infractions has released their findings to USC this morning. Now that USC has notice, Cowherd says that the report will be made public tomorrow (Joe Schad has also confirmed that USC will hold a press conference tomorrow). Looks like "Judgement Day" is finally upon us. If you need more info on the Floyd investigation and what it could mean for UTEP, check out what I wrote last week: Judgment Day: Will the NCAA Place Recruiting Restrictions on UTEP's Tim Floyd?
APR Fail: The NCAA has release their annual APR Report. The UTEP APR Report can be found here. The Miners basketball program received a 921 (Out of 1,000). Any team that scores below the benchmark of 925 is subject to sanctions. Consequently, the NCAA has immediately penalized UTEP by taking away a basketball scholarship. Lost scholarships, by school, can be found here.

More after the jump.

More Miner APR News: The report also sanctioned the loss of 0.95% of a scholarship against the Indoor Women's Track Team- I have no idea what happens to the other 0.05%). On the positive side, the Men's Cross Country and Golf teams did very well and earned "Public Recognition Awards."

According to the NCAA, the APR, or Annual Performance Review is designed to measure academic performance of member institutions by examining:

The APR provides a real-time "snapshot" of a team’s academic success each semester by looking at current academic progress of every student-athlete.
The APR includes eligibility, retention, and graduation as factors in the rate calculation and provides a much clearer picture of the current academic culture in each sport.
The GSR looks back at historical academic success by measuring graduation of all student-athletes, including transfer students and students who leave campus in good academic standing.
The federal graduation rate does not account for transfer student-athletes.

The key is eligibility and retention of student athletes. Each D-1 team calculates its APR by based on eligibility and retention of scholarship student athletes.

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yo adrian

do you have access to bob stull? if so, I would like to know how he’s positioning us for possible re-alignment—has he talked to the mountain west? he can’t just sit there and not do anything. we will know by friday.

by MinerManiax on Jun 9, 2010 1:54 PM MDT via mobile reply actions

Maniax is back!!

There’s no way Bob Stull is going to tip his hand right now, to anybody outside the program that might consider publishing it. Really, we have to all just sit back and see what happens.

Axes Up. Miner Rush - For UTEP Miners Fans

by Adrian Mac on Jun 9, 2010 9:15 PM MDT up reply actions

Help me out here...

Was the loss of Scholie as a result of Barbees tenure? What exactly constituted this loss…meaning what is calculated? Additionally, why does it appear that so many mid-major schools are being hit yet the BCS schools are not. I can’t believe TU, Memphis or any other program that consistently has scholarship players that leave early aren’t losing scholies also. This looks bad!

Secondly, I hated the way you compiled this AMac, it intially looked as though the NCAA report was released and the basketball team lost a scholarship as a result of the USC investigation with CTF. I suppose this is still a possiblity, however I didn’t like seeing that already. :-)

by MinerMike on Jun 9, 2010 8:20 PM MDT reply actions

The APR is insane- I scoured the NCAA site and can't find any sort of formula

Literally all I could find is what I posted above. A 925 is the lowest score you can get. UTEP got a 921. I know its based on retention and eligibility, not on graduation rates. So, the more players that finish the req’d number of hours each semester, the higher the APR.

Thanks for pointing out the headline. Obviously it wasn’t meant to mislead. There were two major b-ball stories today, as explained above. I wanted to get them both down asap (in between classes) and didn’t have time for multiple posts. I guess the “semi-colon” didn’t do it’s job. Ordinarily, the first story would have been “FanShotted” to just let you all know that the report comes out tomorrow and the suspension would have been a separate post. I’ll be sure to be more clear in the future, it was an unfortunate timing of events that the APR and USC stories broke about 3 minutes apart from each other.

Axes Up. Miner Rush - For UTEP Miners Fans

by Adrian Mac on Jun 9, 2010 9:21 PM MDT up reply actions

Haha....

Just busting your chops. And NO, the “semi-colon” didn’t initially do it’s job when I found myself reading this as in a Blitzkrieg frenzy and started franticly searching for more information. Fortunately, I took a deep breath, re-read your headline and made use of the gramatical rules and etiquette also known as punctuation. Thanks for the follow-up.

by MinerMike on Jun 9, 2010 9:43 PM MDT up reply actions

When I reread it I immediatley saw why it would be confusing

Looks like USC is slowly leaking parts of the report: Bruce Feldman just tweeted:

USC has been hit with a two-year post-season ban in addition to the loss of scholarships, among other penalties from the NCAA.

This is terrifying- Honestly- A TWO YEAR POSTSEASON BAN FOR USC FOOTBALL!! WOW. That’s epic, that’s as severe a penalty as the NCAA usually dumps on small schools nobody cares about.

It’s terrifying because if the NCAA brought the Hammer down like that on the football squad, then who knows what they will do with the basketball team?

I just checked and the NCAA report has not been release through them yet, so Feldman is talking to someone at USC who’s trying to slowly release the story to ease the blow in the morning.

Axes Up. Miner Rush - For UTEP Miners Fans

by Adrian Mac on Jun 9, 2010 9:49 PM MDT up reply actions

Spooky is right....

I agree that given what they did to this football cashcow it does leave speculation that they could come down on the BB team with the 10 plagues of Exodus. I’m just not sure there was enough evidence on this side of their investigation for something further. Can you imagine if nothing is determined on the BB team that the “self-imposed” sanctions that SC waged on itself last year would’ve all been for not. I believe Garretts days are numbered if this is found to be the case.

by MinerMike on Jun 9, 2010 10:05 PM MDT up reply actions

Garrett

Is not very popular already . I think you could be right . The NCAA seriously hasn’t been this harsh to a major program in a while… I think Alabamahas a1 year Nan a few years back. There goes any chance the PAC 10 had at 2 bcs teams next year.

Axes Up. Miner Rush - For UTEP Miners Fans

by Adrian Mac on Jun 9, 2010 10:19 PM MDT via mobile up reply actions

feeling mislead...

I have visited your site in the past but today on my visit I came across this story or should I say combination of 2 stories that appears to be headlined in a way to be intentionally misleading for shock value and to draw readers in…I have to say I don’t appreciate that tactic.

by Robnelp on Jun 9, 2010 8:46 PM MDT reply actions

Robnelp= thanks for stopping by

And please see above for explanation. No intent to use any "tactics" to drive up readership; it was just rushed. My headlines are usually very clear but this one is definitely confusing. Any thoughts on the APR or USC report in general? I think I’ve done a hell of a job explaining the Floyd situation- many local sites haven’t covered it at all. As this site grows, and it is growing, the content will be the reason why. Not any tricks. That’s just not how I roll. I do love that we have a platform that encourages feedback here. If something I do sucks, let me know, and I will fix it or explain why it doesn’t suck.

Axes Up. Miner Rush - For UTEP Miners Fans

by Adrian Mac on Jun 9, 2010 9:32 PM MDT up reply actions

For the record...

I still believe CTF will come out of this unscathed but I can’t say the same for Southern Cal. I think they’re in a bit of hot water with long lasting effects. I’m sure this is not the way the Pac 10 16 would’ve wanted to welcome their new members.

As for the APR, I still believe it’s a bit suspect that there aren’t many top Tier schools on this list. Someone would need to convice me that Memphis’s student athletes have a higher elegibilty:retention rate better than UTEP. Again, would this be during Barbees’ tenure? If so, how nice of him to leave us with this parting gift?!

by MinerMike on Jun 9, 2010 9:53 PM MDT reply actions

Me too - The accusations against Floyd

Boiled down to his word against a felons’s. The football team, on the other hand, had LOTS of evidence and testimony on the record in a civil suit against Reggie Bush. Anyway, I know what I’m writing tomorrow- just hoping that it’s a best case scenario; where Floyd walks and where USC get’s the Hammer.

APR- It’s over a four year period, so yes it’s under Barbee’s Tenure.

Axes Up. Miner Rush - For UTEP Miners Fans

by Adrian Mac on Jun 9, 2010 9:57 PM MDT up reply actions