All of Southern's teams out of the APR woods, eligible for postseason in 2018-19

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana -- He had inherited a mess of a men's basketball program at Southern, thin on talent and coming off the worst three-year stretch in school history.

It was 2012, and Roman Banks — then in his first season as the Jaguars coach — had engineered a remarkable 13-win turnaround, finishing second in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

But because of a dangerously low Academic Progress Rate, Banks and the Jaguars couldn't punctuate their season with a trip to the SWAC tournament.

It was the beginning of a stormy time for Southern, whose football, baseball and basketball teams, as well as others, were severely penalized by the NCAA for low APR scores over the next five years.

But at long last, that ugly period at Southern is over.

Next season, all of Southern's athletic teams will be eligible for NCAA postseason play after a comprehensive effort spearheaded by the Athletics Office of Compliance and Student Services.

“It is definitely an exciting time,” said Banks, now the athletic director. “This is the first time since I have been here that all of our teams have met the APR benchmark. Like any athletic success story, the ongoing positive APR reports are the result of a team effort, starting with our student services staff and the coaches who recruit quality student-athletes and emphasize that academics will be a priority at Southern University.”

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