Bradley, Loyola Chicago and Southern Illinois men's basketball teams were among a small number of Division I programs to earn the Team Academic Excellence Award from the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), the organization announced Wednesday. The award is given to programs with a team GPA of 3.0 or greater during the 2017-18 academic year.
Bradley is one of five Division I programs in the state of Illinois to earn the recognition, joining Loyola Chicago, Northwestern, Southern Illinois and Western Illinois. In addition to its success in the classroom, Bradley enjoyed one of its most successful seasons in years on the court. The Braves finished the 2017-18 campaign with a 20-13 record and are one of just four schools in the country to improve by at least five wins in each of the last two years. Bradley also earned a top-five seed for the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament and advanced to the league semifinals for the first time since 2010.
Loyola was one of two teams from this year's Final Four to earn the NABC Team Academic Excellence Award, joining national champion Villanova. The Ramblers were also one of three programs from the Missouri Valley Conference to be recognized, along with Bradley and Southern Illinois. Student-athletes at Loyola are among the brightest in the nation and the athletics department has posted the highest Graduation Success Rate score (99 percent) in the nation in each of the past two years. During the 2017-18 season, guard Clayton Custer (Overland Park, Kan./Blue Valley Northwest/Iowa State) was a CoSIDA Academic All-District V selection and backcourt mate Bruno Skokna (Zagreb, Croatia) earned the Elite 18 Award from the Missouri Valley Conference at the MVC Championship.
The Ramblers captured the hearts of the nation this season, rolling all the way through the NCAA tournament to the Final Four in their first NCAA appearance since 1985. Loyola posted a school-record 32 wins and finished the season ranked No. 7 in the USA Today Coaches Poll.
SIU earned the honor, which has been presented since 2012-13, for the first time. SIU guard Marcus Bartley carries a perfect 4.0 GPA and was an Academic All-American in 2018. Under head coach Barry Hinson, SIU has a 90 percent graduation rate for players who have exhausted eligibility at SIU, and six former players have returned to campus to finish their degrees. In the last three years, nine scholarship players have earned their degrees.
Overall, the NABC recognized 186 programs from all NCAA divisions as well as NAIA and NJCAA.