The APR is a little confusing, what with all the variations through the years and the way these academic things are made to be so intimidating. What most people know of the APR is that if a player leaves the school, and thus does not graduate, the school gets a slap.

Not so. And this is why WVU’s men’s basketball team, despite losing nine players during the four years Bob Huggins has been the coach, is actually one of the country’s best APR teams … and the APR, mind you, looks at a four-year period.

The list is Devan Bawinkel, Jacob Green, Joe Alexander, Will Thomas, Dee Proby, Devin Ebanks, Darrious Curry, Noah Cottrill and now Dalton Pepper and not only is Huggins not to blame for just about all of those, but only two of those names will eventually have what one might consider to be an adverse effect on the APR.

It is heady stuff, but it’s also good to the schools that do their jobs to keep players eligible an on track to graduation.

How can a team lose so many players and do so well in the APR when the APR accounts for retaining and graduating student-athletes on scholarship as part of its snapshot of a program’s academic success?

“A lot of people don’t quite understand the numbers,” said Dr. Paul Downey, WVU educational counselor and resident APR expert. “There are definitely some intricate rules for what is permissible and what does and does not affect a team.”

In short, the exits for the purpose of a transfer or the pursuit of a pro career have not yet hurt the Mountaineers’ APR. Adjustments made to the system over the years no longer overvalue the school’s ability to graduate players it recruited, but put an emphasis on keeping players eligible and on track to graduation and for retaining players.

Last year, WVU received a score of 990 out of 1,000 for the four-year period of 2005-09. The score for the most recent evaluation of 2006-10 will be publicized Tuesday.