N.C. State's wrestling program has been docked one scholarship for next season after scoring one point shy of a passing score in the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate data.

The Wolfpack wrestling team posted a 924 out of a possible 1,000 in the APR data released this week by the NCAA. A 925 is considered a passing score. The mark represents a program's average yearly APR number over four academic years ending in 2009-10.

NCAA experts conceived of the APR as a way to capture a real-time snapshot of a team's academic performance. It also serves as a mechanism to penalize programs in which athletes don't make progress toward graduation.

Carter Jordan, the Wolfpack wrestling coach, said his team's problem was a score of 846 in 2006-07 that he said was the result of a large number of wrestlers leaving the program. The team has posted improved scores since then, but the 846 brings down the four-year average.

N.C. State will be limited to 8.9 scholarships, which Jordan said are spread among 30 wrestlers.

"We're doing what we can do, but when you have a bad year, then you're in trouble," Jordan said. "It's almost impossible to recover. The good news is the bad number will be replaced with a perfect score in the next calculation."

Jordan said he planned for the loss of a scholarship in the previous recruiting cycle. No wrestlers will be displaced from the team because of the scholarship loss, he said.

"We knew it was coming," Jordan said. "We'll get that scholarship back next year. From a practical standpoint, once you get past the embarrassment of it, we were able to recruit and deal with it. But believe me, it's the last thing any coach wants to deal with."

Among other ACC schools, Georgia Tech is losing one scholarship in men's basketball and Maryland has been penalized three football scholarships.

jp.giglio@newsobserver.com or 919-829-8938