Even if the Southern men’s basketball team wins the Southwestern Athletic Conference regular season championship, it won’t be participating in postseason play.
The NCAA informed the university Friday that a waiver request the school filed has fallen through.
The APR is a metric established by the NCAA to indicate the success of collegiate athletic teams in Division 1.
“On behalf of the Southern men’s basketball program, I would like to express our disappointment in our waiver request failing to warrant consideration in the view of the NCAA,” interim athletic director Sandy Pugh said in a statement. “However, we continue to make every effort to ensure that the academic progress our men’s basketball program has made will continue and will encourage all athletic programs to strive to excel academically and athletically.”
Earlier in the day, the NCAA denied a similar waiver request for defending national champion UConn. The Huskies will not be allowed to participate in postseason play in 2013 as a result of low APR scores.
Southern (9-2 SWAC,13-11 overall) is second in the conference behind first-place Mississippi Valley State.