Pelphrey: 12 Hogs were ineligible after 2007 season
Arkansas Coach John Pelphrey gives instructions to his team March 11 at the Southeastern Conference tournament in Nashville.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas Coach John Pelphrey shed some light Monday on the off-the-court issues he faced upon his hiring in 2007.
Pelphrey revealed during an interview on 103.7 FM The Buzz in Little Rock that 12 of 13 players on the Razorbacks' basketball team were ineligible after the spring of 2007, the semester he took over the program after the firing of Stan Heath.
"Something people quickly forget, when I took the job, 12 of the 13 guys were ineligible,” Pelphrey said. “We needed summer school to gain our eligibility."
The basketball team's grade-point average was a 2.04 in the spring of 2007, according to documents provided to WholeHogSports.com through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Pelphrey's revealing comments were the first to shed light on the program's academic concerns behind the scenes. Coaches and Arkansas administrators have primarily remained silent on the issues, some citing student privacy laws and other behind-the-scenes factors.
Pelphrey's first few weeks on the job wasn't the only time frame to contain problems in the classroom, however. The basketball team's grade-point average was a paltry 1.54 in the spring of 2008, when the Razorbacks advanced to the championship in the SEC tournament and the second round of the NCAA tournament in Pelphrey's first season as coach.
Nine players exhausted eligibility, transferred or left the program after the spring semester in 2008. Patrick Beverley left the team in August to pursue a professional career overseas, but not without stirring the pot. The then-sophomore, while preparing for the NBA draft in June 2009, told the Associated Press that a tutor wrote a class paper for him during his stint at Arkansas.
The Razorbacks did work through the summer and had better results in the classroom in the fall of 2008, building up to a 2.15 grade-point average. The team's GPA has remained steady since the spring of 2008, and the school reported a 2.33 grade-point average for the fall of 2009. The GPA last fall was the third-lowest in the Southeastern Conference, according to a report by the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader. Nine of the 12 SEC schools provided grade-point averages to the Herald Leader. Meanwhile, the Razorbacks have struggled on the court and have suffered back-to-back losing seasons.
Arkansas' grade-point average this spring is not yet available, but Pelphrey doesn't expect any bad news.
"Nobody needs summer this year to gain their eligibility," said Pelphrey, who's 51-46 in three seasons at Arkansas. "I may be speaking a little premature because all the grades aren't back in, but that's a huge difference in culture from where we were three short years ago to where we are right now. I'm very, very proud of our guys."
Arkansas is already facing the possibility of a loss of one scholarship depending on the new, four-year rolling score in the APR released by the NCAA. The APR factors retention and eligibility and the Razorbacks’ four-year rolling score was an 888 last year. The NCAA’s benchmark score, which is not subject to penalties, is a 925.
Numbers for the 2008-09 season were not taken into account in last year’s APR, but those numbers will be calculated into the new score expected to be released by the NCAA soon. Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long said he was concerned with the possibility of a loss of scholarships in an interview last May.
Arkansas has faced a bevy of transfers and departures since April 2007, directly affecting the APR. Nine players have transferred on their own or had to leave the team as a result of rules violations since April of 2007, when Pelphrey was hired as Arkansas’ coach. Not included is guard Courtney Fortson, who left the team in April to pursue a professional playing career.
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JonGruden says...
I've been writing about this for a long time. You had to figure something like this was going on when Dana Altman went running out of Bud Walton the day after he was hired. Can you blame him? Hell no!n Stan Heath was one, if not the worst hires in school history. Truly pathetic.
May 11, 2010 at 8:46 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
jedog says...
So what is new with athletes at the major level? It shows me that someone at u of a department is not doing their job.... most players want to party and play basketball... really? Of course it is the head coaches job to keep them in the classroom and doing their work.... rocket science? student-athletes .... funny... but remember it is not just hogs... the whole system is at fault.... meaning the way colleges treat players... so cast stones at bobby knight now... hello! blame game starts at u of a.... incredible...
May 12, 2010 at 4:42 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
davidw says...
So let me see if I got this right, Stan Heath was coach and let GPA slide below average for the team, couldn't win enough games to keep his job, so he was fired. Pel is coach 3 yrs. and GPA is still below minimum for SEC and he can't beat the Jr colleges he schedules, can't control his players on or off the court and obviously can't recruit good players to this type of program. AD thinks he is doing a great job and wants to keep him on job. So realistically thinking how long before we can expect some changes at U of A. Did anyone not notice that we have a serious problem in academics in the basketball program?
May 12, 2010 at 9:16 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
rmmr says...
I agree it is the head coaches job to help manage acedemics, and that he inherited a mess. My problem is with poor shooting, we shoot threes or we lay it off the glass or dunk. No motions to our offense, no 10 or twelve foot jumpers, very few block outs on rebounds, seldom half court traps and full court presses and defintly no arms up on defense or running the passing lanes. I dont know much about college academics, but no a little about the game of basketball and this is my concern with Pel.
May 12, 2010 at 10:07 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
OKHog says...
No one was talking this stuff in fall of 2008 when UA beat Texas & OU. No complaints when they had a 5 win streak in the SEC to start 2010. You think Pel forgot how to coach? Young men should be expected to ACT like young men and not something wild that has been turned loose. I don't live in Ark but I can truly tell you that the UA job is not considered a good job among the ranks. Keep up the HARD Work Coach
May 12, 2010 at 1:21 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
jordan says...
Don't know what to say. Yet!!
May 12, 2010 at 9:18 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
davidw says...
The U of A program is in the ditch at this time and the fans are desperately searching for answers to bring it back. For someone to say that the head coach job is not a good job is absurd, this has been and still is one of the top coaching jobs in the country. We just need a coach that has all the qualities of some of the past coaches that aren't satisfied with simply beating some small jr. colleges and building a false winning record, then falling flat in the SEC. We want a team that leaves it all on the court each night, that has the training to react when the game is on the line. We can accept the losing as long as we are getting better each game.
May 15, 2010 at 8:05 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
jedog says...
Heck with Dana... I didn't want him regardless of his success at mid level college.... I agree 100% with d.....w
he has nailed it... if Long will get off his lazy fanny and hire a winner...then and only then hogball will come back to the good old days ..
Current situation, I have one word...NUTS!
May 16, 2010 at 2:20 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
CnDHawg says...
I would love to see the finger pointers placed in the same position as Pel to see how quickly they walked away from the job. I think it's time for some to realize the world does not change in a day as they seem to believe. With 11 players ineligible, how long do you think it will take for the GPA to rise to an appropriate level? Sheesh...open your eyes and your mind for once.
May 19, 2010 at 7:52 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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