Marquette Athletics And The Academic Progress Rate In 2015

Back in late May, the NCAA released the Academic Progress Rate (APR) report.  The newest update to the APR consists of a four year total of the academic progress by all student-athletes from the 2010-11 season through the 2013-14 season.

Here's the good news:

• 14 of Marquette's 16 athletic teams surpassed the national average for any sport, which was 978, up two points from a year ago.
• Those same 14 programs also surpassed the national average for their sports.
• Three of Marquette's programs (women's volleyball, women's lacrosse, and men's outdoor track & field) finished amongst the top 10% in the country in their respective sports.
• Two programs (women's volleyball and women's lacrosse) posted perfect scores of 1000.

Here's the slightly concerning news: Men's basketball's score has fallen each of the last four years.

As you can already figure out, this number is one of the two below the national average for any team, and it's also below the average for just men's basketball, which is up 4 points this year to 961.  Ignoring the part where men's hoops is below average for a moment, the actual concerning part is the fact that programs become ineligible for the postseason when the score hits 930.

I don't want to particularly accuse anyone of anything here, but the fact of the matter is that Buzz Williams left Marquette before the 2013-14 academic year ended.

The score for next year is already in trouble, by the way.  Merely not retaining players who are academically eligible dings the score, and men's basketball lost 4 players before their eligibility ended since the end of the 2013-14 academic calendar: John Dawson, Deonte Burton, Todd Mayo, and Steve Taylor, Jr.  It's unclear as to how Gabe Levin will impact the APR, as Levin never was on the roster for an official game.  If he's considered part of the team for the 2015 fall semester, that's another knock.  Matthew Mache leaving the team at the end of this season won't affect MU, though, as he's not leaving Marquette.

It is possible that there won't be a major shift in the APR score a year from now.  It is a four year total, so whatever caused the score to drop from 980 to 970 in 2010-11 will no longer be a part of the score when the NCAA releases an update next May.  Everything else that caused the drops in the three years since then will still be a part of the score, though.

The other program that did not meet the national average is men's soccer, which scored a 970.  That's down from 980 a year ago and 983 the year before that.  That's much less troublesome, of course, especially when you consider that men's soccer was at 946 following the 2008-09 school year.