Basketball Hogs: Struggling to Make the Grade

You already knew that the basketball team didn’t exactly turn in a straight-A report card for their work on the court this year. But today the NCAA announced that the basketball Hogs are also in danger of flunking out,based on the 2007-08 season, they scored a 888 on the Academic Performance Review (anything under 925 is bad).

[Random editor’s note: I’ve been following college sports for a long time and this week is the first I’ve ever heard anything about the APR. Is this a new thing? It seems like a good idea and all, but it feels to me like it just blew up out of nowhere. I’m definitely allowing for the possibility of me being completely, embarrassingly and totally wrong here…wouldn’t be the first time.]

Apparently when you have six seniors leave without graduating and approximately two bazillion players transferring over the course of a year, that tends to hurt your APR score. Who knew??

It’s a complicated subject, so we will leave it up to the pros to break things down. Here are some handy links:

* Brandon Marcello at the Slophouse breaks it all down with an excellent overview of what this means and how we got to this point.

* Jeff Long looks at the longer-term situation and admits that more serious penalties, such as a scholarship loss, could be in store for next year. Basically, when you’re at 888 it takes time to pull that number up over 925…hard to turn it around in a single season.

* On the bright side, the football team blew past the 925 limit with a dominating 927 score. And the women’s golf team has hit a perfect 1000 for five years running! (Full chart for all sports at the Slophouse.)

* Robbie Neiswanger at the Hog Blog takes a look at how the Hogs’ performance compares to other programs around the country. (Fun stats: Arkansas basketball falls into the 10 percent of teams scoring under 925, and 4 percent scoring under 900).

* Jeff Long and John Pelphrey have issued their response.

This is a serious and complicated situation, but do not worry—your friends at Razorback Expats, Inc are here to help. We have done the homework, crunched the numbers and figured out the solution: follow the academic regimen of one Mr. Thorton Melon and all will be well. Long and Pelphrey…you can thank us later.