The North Texas football and men’s basketball teams will be a little shorthanded next season after the NCAA handed both teams scholarship penalties for falling short of the benchmark score in its Academic Progress Rate report released Tuesday.

The UNT football team lost five scholarships, the highest total in Texas and in the Sun Belt Conference, while the basketball team lost one scholarship.

Rick Villarreal

The football team will only be able to renew 80 scholarships instead of 85 next season, while the men’s basketball team will be able to carry 12 players, one less than the NCAA maximum.

The men’s basketball team will not fill what would have been a fourth scholarship in its 2008 recruiting class.

UNT incurred the penalties despite what school officials deemed a solid all-around performance on the report that measures an institution’s ability to keep its athletes in school and eligible.

The Mean Green football program actually had the fourth-highest APR score in the Sun Belt at 917, while the men’s basketball program ranked fifth with a score of 924. The NCAA’s benchmark for avoiding penalties is 925. Tuesday’s report was the first released by the NCAA that took into account a four-year average.

“We recognize and appreciate the intent of the APR and will continue to work hard toward not only meeting, but exceeding the standards set by the NCAA,” UNT athletic director Rick Villarreal said in a prepared statement. “We do, however, work under the belief that it is one of many components in measuring academic success.

“In our athletics program, we are continually implementing support programs and enhancing facilities that further the ability of our student-athletes to be academically successful and to graduate.”

Villarreal said UNT has improved the graduation rate of its athletes from 37 to 67 percent from 2001 to 2006.

Several Sun Belt programs with lower APR scores than UNT avoided scholarship penalties after receiving waivers from the NCAA. One way in which schools could receive a waiver involves a chart that estimates how an APR score translates to a graduation rate.

If an athletic program has an estimated graduation rate 10 percent above that of its student body, it is exempt from penalties, UNT director of compliance Daryl Simpson said.

Schools can also receive a waiver if they show that they are under-funded.

“The University of North Texas is a strong academic institution, which means the guidelines for the APR may hold this athletic department to a higher standard than other programs,” Villarreal said. “Most of our teams are graduating at a rate higher than the graduation projections being used to determine APR penalties, and that discrepancy is unfortunate. Those factors that prevented penalties for other schools below 925 blurs the fact that North Texas is performing at a level equal to or higher than many of our peers.”

Simpson said UNT applied for a waiver from the NCAA because former guard Rich Young had to travel home to Pennsylvania multiple times during the 2006-07 season while his mother was sick. The NCAA denied UNT’s request that would have pushed its men’s basketball team well above the 925 mark.

Young will graduate this summer, which will help UNT’s score.

Simpson said UNT also applied for a waiver in football based on its investment in an academic center and additional academic personnel that was denied.

The problem UNT could encounter in football is that it might take several years to increase its four-year APR average because of low scores over the last few years.

“We are definitely headed in the right direction,” Simpson said. “But once you start off in a hole — we have been around 915 all four years — it’s going to take a couple of years to get out of it. It’s a four-year average. Can I say next we are not going to have penalties? I don’t know. It’s an average that takes a couple of good years and dropping off a couple of bad years to correct.”

UNT head coach Todd Dodge declined through a university spokesman to comment on the APR or the effect losing five scholarships will have on his team.

Men’s basketball coach Johnny Jones said that losing a few players over the years who transferred in search of more playing time damaged his team’s score. UNT has graduated several of its players over the years, including recent standouts Calvin Watson and Kendrick Davis. Former guard Ben Bell and Young are among the former UNT players expected to graduate in the next few weeks.

“We take a great deal of pride in being champions on the court as well as in the classroom,” Jones said. “When we have setbacks there is always disappointment, but we are always constantly trying to improve.”

Jones credited the university’s focus on academics for the success of his players who have graduated or are about to graduate.

“The university has invested in facilities, personnel, and support for all of its athletes to ensure their success in the classroom as well as on the floor,” Jones said.

Jones expects that investment to pay off in an improved APR score for his team in the future.

“We want to succeed not only on the floor, but in the classroom as well,” Jones said. “Although we have a high percentage of guys that are successful, we are always disappointed when we fall short of the mark in any area.”

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com .