FAYETTEVILLE -- Ten of Arkansas' 19 sports posted perfect Academic Progress Rate scores of 1,000 for the 2013-2014 school year, including men's basketball, according to an NCAA report released Wednesday.
The men's basketball score is particularly notable because the team was penalized by the NCAA with the loss of a scholarship for the 2011-2012 season -- Coach Mike Anderson's first season on the job -- for having a multi-year score of 892.
Arkansas APR scores
MEN’S SPORTS
SPORT MULTI 2013-14
Baseball 959 940
Basketball 959 1,000
Cross country 964 1,000
Football 938 952
Golf 1,000 952
Tennis 994 1,000
Indoor track and field 956 971
Outdoor track and field 966 1,000
WOMEN’S SPORTS
SPORT MULTI 2013-14
Basketball 944 1,000
Cross country 974 982
Golf 1,000 1,000
Gymnastics 995 1,000
Soccer 995 1,000
Softball 972 977
Swimming/diving 995 1,000
Tennis 955 1,000
Indoor track and field 969 993
Outdoor track and field 974 993
Volleyball 1,000 981
All of Arkansas' sports for the third consecutive year had multi-year scores that exceeded the NCAA's benchmark of 930. Seventeen sports had scores of 950 or higher.
Academics for men's basketball has steadily improved under Anderson with the perfect score resulting from six players graduating in the spring of 2014. After the 2007-2008 season, there were six Arkansas seniors who didn't graduate.
"Mike navigated us through the APR problems, and now he's filled his program with high-character young men," Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long said in March after the Razorbacks returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2008. "The way they've conducted themselves off the court and the way they've performed in the classroom, now we're starting to see that performance on the court, too.
"Mike is a high-integrity, high-character person himself, and that's the way he runs his program."
Other Arkansas sports to have 1,000 scores for the 2013-2014 school year were men's cross country and outdoor track and field, men's tennis and women's basketball, golf, gymnastics, soccer, swimming and diving, and tennis.
Arkansas' APR score for football for the 2013-2014 school year was 952, giving the team a multi-year score -- determined by averaging the rate from four consecutive years -- of 938.
Men's golf, women's golf and volleyball earned special recognition from the NCAA for having multi-year scores of 1,000.
Men's basketball, with a multi-year score 959, was among 13 sports that increased or maintained its score from the previous year. In the past five years, the men's basketball multi-year rate has improved by 73 points.
Sports on 05/28/2015