ORONO, Maine -- The University of Maine women's basketball team ranked #24 in the 2014-15 Division I Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Academic Top 25 Honor Roll presented by AT&T, announced on Tuesday, July 14.
The Black Bears were the lone America East program on the 2014-15 WBCA Top 25 Honor Roll, representing with a 3.399 team GPA for the year. Individually earlier in the spring, Liz Wood (Catlett, Va.) and Sigi Koizar (Vienna, Austria) were each named to the America East All-Academic team, holding the highest GPAs on the squad. Wood was also named the America East Women's Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
The WBCA Academic Top 25 presented by AT&T annually recognizes NCAA Division I, II and III; NAIA; and junior/community college women's basketball teams across the nation that carry the highest combined grade point average (GPA) inclusive of all student-athletes on their rosters for the entire season. The 2014-15 season is the 20th in which the WBCA has compiled the honor rolls.
A team's GPA is calculated by dividing the total number of quality points earned by the total number of hours attempted by all team members in the academic terms (semesters or quarters) that the season spans. Weighted grades are converted to a 4.0 scale. The GPA's are rounded to the nearest thousandth of a point. Teams are nominated for the honor by a WBCA-member head coach. A team must have a 3.000 or better GPA to be nominated.
Below is a complete run-down of the full Top-25 rankings.
|
Rank
|
Institution
|
2014-15 Head Coach
|
Team GPA
|
|
1
|
University of Missouri-Kansas City
|
Marsha Frese
|
3.726
|
|
2
|
St. Francis College**
|
John Thurson
|
3.656
|
|
3
|
DePaul University**
|
Doug Bruno
|
3.622
|
|
4
|
Drake University
|
Jennie Baranczyk
|
3.599
|
|
5
|
Bowling Green State University
|
Jennifer Roos
|
3.594
|
|
6
|
Saint Louis University
|
Lisa Stone
|
3.564
|
|
7
|
Arizona State University**
|
Charli Turner Thorne
|
3.558
|
|
8
|
Eastern Washington University
|
Wendy Schuller
|
3.554
|
|
9
|
Florida Gulf Coast University**
|
Karl Smesko
|
3.552
|
|
T10
|
Western Illinois University
|
JD Gravina
|
3.530
|
|
T10
|
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay**
|
Kevin Borseth
|
3.530
|
|
12
|
University of Northern Iowa
|
Tanya Warren
|
3.519
|
|
13
|
University of North Dakota
|
J. Travis Brewster
|
3.517
|
|
14
|
Jacksonville State University
|
Rick Pietri
|
3.511
|
|
15
|
Belmont University
|
Cameron Newbauer
|
3.501
|
|
16
|
Northwestern State University**
|
Brooke Stoehr
|
3.461
|
|
17
|
Houston Baptist University
|
Donna Finnie
|
3.445
|
|
18
|
University of Toledo
|
Tricia Cullop
|
3.443
|
|
19
|
Northern Illinois University
|
Kathi Bennett
|
3.438
|
|
20
|
University of Northern Colorado
|
Kamie Ethridge
|
3.431
|
|
21
|
South Dakota State University**
|
Aaron Johnston
|
3.427
|
|
22
|
Youngstown State University
|
John Barnes
|
3.422
|
|
23
|
St. Bonaventure University
|
Jim Crowley
|
3.406
|
|
24
|
University of Maine
|
Richard Barron
|
3.399
|
|
25
|
Lehigh University
|
Susan Troyan
|
3.396
|
The University of Maine is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2015. In conjunction with this, the athletic department will celebrate 150 student-athletes achievements over the next year.
-U-M-
