Barke responds as APR penalty picture becomes more clear for Southeast Missouri State men's basketball

Southeast Missouri head coach Rick Ray watches during a game against Austin Peay Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017 at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau.

Andrew J. Whitaker

The Southeast Missouri State men's basketball program is doing its best to move past a disappointing 2015-16 campaign, one that left its most lasting mark on Wednesday when the NCAA announced that Southeast is one of 17 Division I programs across the country ineligible for postseason play in 2017-18 as a result of low Academic Progress Rate scores over a four-year period.

SEMO's multi-year APR score of 925 finished just below 930, which is the required threshold to avoid penalties.

During that four-year span, the Redhawks had single-year scores of 927 (2012-13), 958 (2013-14) and 963 (2014-15) under the direction of former coach Dickey Nutt, who was fired prior to the start of the 2015-16 season and replaced by current coach Rick Ray. The 2015-16 season, Ray's first at the helm, saw a multitude of roster changes, while the single-year APR score plummeted to 860 -- 12 points below the minimum SEMO needed to avoid penalty.

APR is designed to measure timely graduation and is determined by both eligibility and retention, both of which factored greatly in the 2015-16 score.

Former scholarship players Marcus Wallace and Ladarius Coleman departed from the program in the middle of that season before freshman Tony Anderson made a surprising decision to declare for the NBA Draft. On top of that, one additional player was dismissed during the offseason while three others each sought a transfer.

Southeast director of athletics Brady Barke said the administration knew there was a possibility there'd be penalties but just recently received the final word from the NCAA. He said the administration submits the data itself and tries to project APR in real time to gain better knowledge of each program's standing.

"The way that APR works and the impact that it has or can have on a program, we have to always be paying attention to it," Barke said, "but when you factor in not only just the academic eligibility but also the retention, that's a part that's much harder to predict because you often don't know whether a student's going to decide to come back or whether a student may declare for the NBA Draft -- those types of things.

"When you're talking about such narrow margins, a point or two can kind of shift whether you're above or below the line, and it's difficult to ever feel comfortable that you're in good shape. We knew we were in trouble. It just happened to be that we had some unfortunate circumstances, and things didn't turn out like we had hoped."

Each student-athlete receiving athletically-related financial aid has an opportunity to earn two points each semester that go toward a program's APR. One point is awarded if the student-athlete is eligible for the next semester, while the other is awarded if the student-athlete is retained by the institution the next semester. A team's total points are divvied by points possible before being multiplied by 1,000 to determine the team's APR.

There are, however, transfer exceptions that factor into APR and are dependent on the student-athlete's grade-point average in conjunction with the institution of transfer. There is also an exception for student-athletes who sign a contract and choose to play professionally, all of whom account for a point if they are in good academic standing.

Southeast Missouri State athletic director Brady Barke, pictured in this 2015 file photo, said "unfortunate circumstances" led to APR penalties handed down to Redhawks men's basketball by the NCAA on Wednesday. Those circumstances saw the attrition of a number of players in 2015-16 that hurt the program's academic retention standing.

Glenn Landberg ~ Southeast Missourian

While the effect of the 2015-16 season has left its mark, Barke said one of the biggest challenges is ensuring stability in the program.

"We took a big hit in that year, but as you go back and look and think, any of those points would've helped," Barke said. "The bigger thing for us is that with a rolling average, that year will stay in that cohort for the next three years. So that's why we have to have an added emphasis on ensuring that our students succeed academically but, probably more importantly, ensure that our students are retained at the institution so as to not lose points from students who are otherwise doing well academically."

Along with being ineligible for the postseason, practice time will be restricted to 16 hours and five days per week during the season.

Of the 17 programs with postseason penalties, Southeast men's basketball is the most prominent. Southeast is the second-largest institution in terms of enrollment, behind only Illinois-Chicago (men's cross country).

The postseason penalty also negates the Redhawks' eligibility to compete in the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament, which offers the champion an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Before coming to Southeast, Ray spent three years as coach at Mississippi State, during which his teams had APR scores of 1,000 (2012-13), 935 (2013-14) and 1,000 (2014-15). Ray has communicated SEMO's current situation with all incoming signees and returning student-athletes, according to Barke.

"I think you have to continue to look to the future and look at what we're building and not just think of this as the 2017-18 season in isolation but look at the bigger picture of where ultimately we're trying to get to," Barke said. "I think if you look at it, these things take time, and I'm not sure anyone has said, 'Well, 2017-18 was going to be the year.'

"You have to continue to look at building that momentum ... so I think that's the message. And so far, I think it's been pretty well-received."

After finishing 5-24 in his first season at Southeast, Ray led a turnaround in 2016-17, as the Redhawks compiled a 15-18 record and returned to the conference tournament as the No. 5 seed. Also among the accomplishments, Southeast swept Murray State for the first time in the program's Division I era and was within a game of clinching its first-ever division title.

Outside of that trajectory, Barke believes Ray takes pride in ensuring his team is held to a high academic standard.

"He has never shied away from that. He's never tried to say that's someone else's responsibility," Barke said about Ray, who was unavailable for comment. "He has owned that, so much so that he has regular meetings with his student-athletes to go over where they are in their coursework. That type of ownership, I think, sets a tone with his student-athletes in terms of what he expects out of them off the court.

"We knew that it was going to be a little bit of a culture change for some students and that it was going to take a little bit of time to make sure that we had the right people who were all bought in, and I think that's the case with any coaching change. People operate a little bit differently, and their priorities are a little bit different. I anticipated that we would see a little bit of attrition as a result of that."

Barke said the administration is taking responsibility to make sure that student-athletes are comfortable with the current academic climate. The new academic services staff has tried to implement a more hands-on approach when dealing with student-athletes on a more personal level, and Barke said he's seen positive results from throughout all of the athletic programs.

The administration is also introducing a summer bridge program for incoming student-athletes to ensure a smooth transition into college life. Barke said part of the process is making sure student-athletes understand how to navigate scheduling structure at the university level, as it relates to the challenge of balancing coursework and athletics.

"... I used this as an opportunity earlier today to remind everyone in the department that everyone has a role in making student-athletes feel comfortable here. It's not just the academic support that we're providing for our students," Barke said. "It's the type of atmosphere that we're creating at games that make students feel like this is a good place for them. It's the relationships that they develop with our athletic trainers and our strength and conditioning coaches and those type of people that make them feel like this is the place and that they're cared for here the way that they need to be.

"The retention part is everyone's responsibility, and I think we have to approach it that way in order to ensure that our students are comfortable here and want to spend their time here and don't just come for a year or two and decide they want to look somewhere else and transfer out because that will impact us as much as anything."

If SEMO is unable to markedly improve the APR moving into next year, the penalties would move in to the Level Two variety, which would add reduction of practice time in the offseason and the potential of a reduced number of games.

An APR score of 939 for 2016-17 will lift the Redhawks above the 930 four-year threshold moving forward.

Whether it's possible to avoid penalties for 2018-19 without hitting that mark is unclear. In response to an email inquiry from the Southeast Missourian, the NCAA said that the key is showing "measureable improvement." That phrase, however, is left undefined.

Fellow Ohio Valley Conference men's program Morehead State received Level One penalties following an 837 APR in 2014-15 that dropped the team's four-year average to 884. This year, Morehead State's four-year average of 926 remains below the academic standard, but penalties were not issued, likely because of "measurable improvement" -- the program's 2015-16 single-year APR was 1,000.

Barke said that Southeast remains focused on a plan to ensure long-term stability.

"We'll continue to have an improvement plan probably for the foreseeable future until we get to a point where we feel like our academic success and our retention is where we want it to be within that program, but APR is a rolling four-year average," Barke said.

"Our hope is that this is a one-time occurrence for us and that we're able to begin that upward trend and move forward, but until that point, we'll treat it with the same sense of urgency that we need to do everything we can to make sure all of our students are successful and that we give them the resources they need to do so."

Read the initial Redhawks Report blog reporting the NCAA penalties HERE.