TUSCALOOSA | The University of Alabama athletic department continued to show strong graduation rate success on Wednesday, with all 21 UA varsity teams scoring above the national cutoff standard in the NCAA's latest Academic Progress Rate (APR) data release.

The UA football team scored a 970, 22 points higher than the national football average and tied for the third-best score among Southeastern Conference institutions. Men's basketball scored a 984, the second-best score among SEC schools.

The statistics released by the NCAA on Wednesday covered the four-year period extending from the 2007-08 through 2010-11 academic years.

"In a year of unprecedented athletic success, the fact that the University of Alabama continues to do extremely well in terms of the NCAA's annual Academic Progress Rate is a point of tremendous pride," UA Director of Athletics Mal Moore said in a UA press release. "There is no doubt that this report shows that Alabama strives to do things the right way, producing champions on the field and in the classroom."

The UA women's golf team, which won its first NCAA Championship this spring, and the women's tennis team both recently received public recognition from the NCAA for their APR scores, with both sports scoring a perfect 1,000 APR.

Also posting scores above 990 were the 2012 NCAA Champion softball team (993), the NCAA Champion gymnastics team (991) and the NCAA runner-up men's golf team (990). The Crimson Tide women's swimming & diving (985), men's basketball (984), volleyball (983), soccer (982), baseball (980), men's swimming and diving (980) and men's tennis (980) team's all posted scores of 980 or better.

"Once again, our APR report was very positive," UA Assistant Athletic Director for Student Services Jon Dever said. "We had two sports earn perfect scores of 1,000 and all 21 teams were at least 30 points above the 925 mark, including 14 teams that bettered that mark by 50 points or more. There were 12 teams which improved their four-year scores from a year ago. In addition to that, seven of our teams, including football, men's basketball and baseball, bettered the national average for their sport by 15 points or more."

Across the nation, APR scores continued to climb on average, although post-season sanctions were imposed on 15 programs, including 10 men's basketball programs. Among those schools that will be ineligible for the 2013 NCAA Men's basketball tournament are Jacksonville State, UConn, UNC-Wilmington and Toledo.

Reach Cecil Hurt at cecil@tidesports.com or 205-722-0225.