ACADEMIC SPOTLIGHT: Calipari's Cats Honored by NABC For Second Straight Year; One of Only Three SEC
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – For the second consecutive season, UK men’s basketball program was honored by the National Association of Basketball Coaches for team academic excellence.
The second annual Team Academic Excellence Awards, created by the NABC Committee on Academics to recognize outstanding academic achievement, selected 125 colleges and universities with cumulative team grade-point average of 3.0 or better for the 2013-14 season.
UK coach John Calipari (pictured) saw his squad post a 3.11 cumulative GPA. His teams have tallied a 3.0 GPA or better in six of the last seven semesters.
Three Wildcats -- Tod Lanter, Sam Malone and Jarrod Polson -- were named to the NABC Honors Court on Monday, July 21. Malone was the recipient of the Elite 89 award at the 2014 Final Four, which honors the student athlete with the highest cumulative GPA participating in the Final Four.
Nine Wildcats were tabbed to various Southeastern Conference Honor Rolls this season. Dominique Hawkins, Dakari Johnson, Lanter, Marcus Lee, Brian Long, Malone, Polson, Alex Poythress and Derek Willis were all honored by the SEC.
Since Calipari’s arrival, all nine players who have exhausted their athletic eligibility have graduated from UK including: Twany Beckham, Josh Harrellson, Ramon Harris, Jon Hood, Mark Krebs, Darius Miller, Polson, Perry Stevenson and Eloy Vargas. Furthermore, Patrick Patterson and Polson completed their degrees in just three years.
Kentucky was one of three teams from the SEC to earn recognition by the NABC for academic excellence, while a mere eight BCS-level institutions earned the honor.
