The NCAA has been catching a lot of heat for banning Connecticut’s men’s basketball team, but the organization is standing by it’s decision. UConn was banned by the NCAA because of the years of low scores they recorded on the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate. UConn has called the ban unfair, saying it hurts current students, who had nothing to do with the low scores. Six members of Connecticut’s Congressional delegation seem to agree with the school, and they wrote a letter to express how they felt about the ban.

“While we understand and support the goals of ensuring quality educational opportunities for student-athletes and the need for strong sanctions for failure to meet those goals, we have misgivings about the retroactive implementation of the penalty,” the members of Congress wrote. “In particular, the NCAA appears to have imposed an overly harsh and unfair penalty by imposing APR sanctions retroactively for conduct and circumstances that had already occurred.”

Bob Williams, an NCAA spokesman, defended the ban and said all colleges have known about the rules since 2006. ”Every other team at the University of Connecticut met the standard,” Williams said. “Every other team in the entire Northeast did. So obviously the standard was well known and others met the standard. The real issue is the academic performance of the UConn men’s basketball team.”

Connecticut’s men’s basketball program got a score of 826 for the 2009-10 school year. UConn’s score for 2010-11 was 978. That would not be high enough. It would give Connecticut a two-year score of 902 and a four-year score of below 890.

Signed, Isidori Mtabo