Academic Progress

Heather A. Dinich explains how the Maryland men's basketball team could lose scholarships if it doesn't raise its Academic Progress Rate. Go to baltimoresun.com/dinich.

Wayne Bristol, a 6-foot-1 junior guard who appeared in 21 games last season, is academically ineligible for the fall semester and will miss at least Maryland's first six games. If Bristol makes sufficient academic progress this fall, he'd be able to return to the Terps on Dec. 15.Bristol, of Beltsville, averaged 2.6 points and 1.2 rebounds in a reserve role last season.

Morgan State's men's basketball team is losing two more scholarships for falling below NCAA standards on players' academic progress, the school and the NCAA said Wednesday. In addition, Morgan State's football team is being stripped of 3.15 scholarships. The teams fell below the cutoff in the latest Academic Progress Rate scores, which measure how well schools are keeping players on track to graduate. The basketball team had lost one scholarship last year. In March, the team advanced to the NCAA tournament for the second straight year.

A source familiar with the head coaching search at Florida International said Monday that Maryland assistant Scott Spinelli is no longer in the running at the Miami school. Spinelli was one of four candidates for the opening that was created when Richard Pitino, the son of national champion Louisville coach Rick Pitino, left for Minnesota. Norfolk State coach Anthony Evans -- the only head coach among the finalists -- has been offered the job, the source said. FIU had contacted Spinelli prior to the Final Four and interviewed him last weekend. FIU, which won 18 games under the 30-year-old Pitino, is facing possible sanctions from the NCAA after failing to meet Academic Progress Rate guidelines.

University of Maryland teams posted their best Graduation Success Rate, 82 percent, in the most recent statistics announced Thursday. It was the third straight year that Maryland's GSR has risen. This year's numbers measure freshmen who entered the school from the 2002-2003 school year through 2005-2006. The men's basketball team went from 46 percent in 2011 to 50 percent this year, while women's basketball improved from 81 percent to 93 percent. The football team's rate improved from 59 percent to 65 percent.

— The rate that the NCAA uses to chart football players' paths toward graduation has declined at Maryland for five straight years, placing it next to last in the Atlantic Coast Conference and evoking concern — and changes — at the school. The football program's Academic Progress Rate — based on players' performances over four rolling academic years — has dropped each year from 2005 through 2010, according to NCAA online records. While some of the declines were marginal, Maryland ranked 11th out of 12 ACC schools — ahead of only Florida State — in the figures released last June.

The Terps men's basketball team will play its first game next season on Nov. 8 against Connecticut at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., sources said Friday night. It will mark the second straight year that Maryland opens its season at the venue. The Terps lost, 72-69, to Kentucky on Nov. 9 to start this season. Sophomore center Alex Len led the Terps with 23 points and 12 rebounds in the loss to the Wildcats, while sophomore guard Nick Faust added 11 points. Connecticut, which served a one-year postseason ban this season due to low Academic Progress Rate scores, finished tied for seventh in the Big East Conference during the regular season.

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- President Bush renewed his efforts yesterday to win reauthorization of his signature education program when the new Congress begins work next year and said he would not yield on one of its most controversial components: the requirement that standardized tests periodically measure students' progress. He spoke at a magnet school in Greensboro, presenting the academic progress of the school's students in recent years as evidence that the No Child Left Behind law was achieving its goals.

Fenwick W. English Occupation Senior professor at the University of North Carolina School of Education at Chapel Hill; lead auditor with Phi Delta Kappa International, a nonprofit group that reviews curriculum management in school systems. in the news English led a team of auditors who analyzed Baltimore County schools and found that a lack of curriculum oversight and teacher training undermined academic progress. Among their major findings, auditors said that teachers are inundated with new programs but receive little guidance on how to use them and that many schools are in disrepair.

Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams earned a one-year contract extension by meeting academic and competitive incentives included in his contract, which now runs through June 2012, university officials confirmed yesterday. Williams, whose guaranteed salary for the 2007-08 season is $1.8 million with possible bonuses, met the competitive benchmark by taking the Terps to the NCAA tournament last season. Maryland lost to Butler in the second round, but it ended a string of back-to-back appearances in the National Invitation Tournament.