4 mid-major schools ineligible for postseason due to APR scores

The NCAA has released APR scores from the 2015-16 academic year, and with it came the news that four Division I men’s basketball programs will be ineligible to play in the 2017-18 postseason.

Alabama A&M and Grambling from the SWAC, Savannah State from the MEAC, and, perhaps most notably, Southeast Missouri from the Ohio Valley will all be unable to play in the postseason next year.

Three of these schools, Alabama A&M, Grambling, and Savannah State, are Historically Black Colleges/Universities (HBCUs). In recent years, the NCAA has made adjustments to its rules on ineligibility to try and alleviate the disproportionate penalties put on HBCUs, but they still represent the vast majority of programs that failed to meet the 930/1000 APR score this year.

None of these teams was considered frontrunners to win their conferences, and two of the teams, Grambling and Savannah State, have never made the NCAA Tournament. The news is doubly disappointing for Savannah State, which recently announced that it will be reclassify down to Division II by the fall of 2019.

A complete list of every APR score from every school and every team can be found in USA Today’s article here.