UCLA’s marquee programs achieve academic gains

Bruins basketball, football teams boost APRs, avoid penalties. USC thrives again.

Martin Jarmond can cross this one off his list, but only in pencil.

As UCLA made its athletic director hire official this week, the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate report released Tuesday showed the Bruins’ marquee programs inching away from potential sanctions.

With a multiple-year APR of 930 points required to avoid penalties, the UCLA men’s basketball team, three points away from a postseason ban last year, jumped to 945, and the football team recovered from an avalanche of transfers in the first year of coach Chip Kelly’s tenure to boost its single-year APR by 61 points, although the team’s multiple-year APR fell by four points to 944.

For the seventh consecutive season, USC posted its highest multiple-year APR, 985, as 12 of its 21 teams equaled or exceeded their scores from a year ago. Six Trojans teams posted a perfect score of 1,000, while none were close to the minimum threshold of 930 that could lead to NCAA penalties.

The APR was established by the NCAA to monitor academic success in athletic programs by encouraging schools to retain scholarship athletes and keep them in qualifying academic standing. Scores are calculated by each scholarship athlete earning up to two points per academic term: one point for staying in school and another for being academically eligible. A team must have a multiple-year APR of 930 to avoid penalties that involve limited practice and postseason bans.

For the Bruins football program that has lost about 40 players since Kelly took over in December 2017, transfers affected the team’s dramatic single-year drop from an APR of 971 in the 2016-17 academic year to 881 in 2017-18. As a result, the team’s multiple-year APR fell 19 points to 948 in Kelly’s first year.

The football team recorded an APR of 942 for the 201819 academic year. Because multiple-year APRs are measured for a four-year cohort, the team exchanged this year’s number for a 963 from the 2014-15 year, which led to the four-point multiple-year slip. Next year, the Bruins are due to drop a 973, a high score that puts pressure on the 2019-20 academic year’s success to maintain the multiple-year APR.

No other UCLA team had a multiyear APR lower than 961. The Bruins had three sports with perfect multipleyear APRs of 1,000 — women’s beach volleyball, men’s cross-country and women’s golf — and 12 teams with perfect single-year scores, including nine from women’s teams.

USC football’s single-season APR fell slightly, from 972 to 969, but the men’s basketball team had its highest score with a 974. Both ranked ahead of the national average.

Twelve other Trojans programs exceeded or equaled the national average in APR.

Men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s track, women’s cross-country and men’s volleyball finished in the top 10% in their sports.

Those six teams received NCAA Public Recognition Awards last week for their academic performances.