Cal hits APR highs; 14 Stanford teams perfect

Cal’s football and men’s basketball programs produced their highest four-year Academic Progress Rate scores ever in data released Wednesday by the NCAA.

“The scores we see are the result of a lot of hard work on behalf of coaches, staff and the staff at the Athletic Study Center,” Cal athletic director Mike Williams said in a statement.

After a period of what he called less than satisfactory results,’’ he said, “we have seen tremendous academic improvement in both our football and men’s basketball programs.”

Seven teams earned perfect four-year averages of 1,000 — women’s golf, women’s gymnastics, women’s lacrosse, men’s and women’s tennis, women’s volleyball and men’s water polo.

In addition to men’s basketball, they were: men’s and women’s cross country, softball, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s water polo.

Stanford programs that posted perfect four-year averages, besides the basketball teams, were six men’s teams (fencing, golf, gymnastics, tennis and water polo) and six women’s teams (field hockey, golf, gymnastics, softball, tennis volleyball and water polo).

According to the NCAA, overall APR scores improved for the 12th straight year.

[...] the NCAA said, 17 Division I teams will be ineligible for postseason play in 2017-18 due to their low APR scores, including men’s basketball teams at Alabama A&M, Grambling, Savannah State and Southeast Missouri State.

Five teams posted perfect scores: men’s cross country, women’s basketball, women’s golf, gymnastics and women’s water polo.