ATLANTA, Ga. (July 23, 2019) – Sporting a sparkling 3.616 cumulative team grade point average for the 2018-19 academic year, the Northern Arizona women's basketball team nailed down a spot in the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Academic Top 25 Team Honor Roll. The Lumberjacks came in 12th among Division I teams marking their first finish in the WBCA's top 25 academic ranking in nine years.
NAU was the only Big Sky Conference institution ranked this season and the Lumberjacks' 3.616 GPA is the fourth-highest by a conference program in available data going back to 2001-02 year. Furthermore, the 3.616 team GPA was the program's highest annual team GPA going back to 2001-02.
NAU was previously ranked in the WBCA Academic Top 25 Team Honor Roll in four consecutive years from 2003-04 through 2006-07 and once more in 2009-10. The program's highest-ever ranking was fifth at the conclusion of the 2003-04 academic year. The 2018-19 season is the 24th in which the WBCA has compiled honor rolls recognizing NCAA Division I, II and III, NAIA and two-year schools.
Head coach
Loree Payne's Lumberjacks were stellar in the classroom throughout the recently completed academic year with 12 of the 15 student-athletes on last year's roster registering a GPA of 3.0 or higher. Eleven of these 12 'Jacks were above a 3.6 for the year.
Kaleigh Paplow,
Caitlin Malvar and
Nina Radford each recorded a perfect 4.0 GPA during the 2018-19 academic calendar year, while four additional student-athletes narrowly missed perfection and finished with year GPAs between 3.9 and 4.0.
The Lumberjack women's basketball team also led the entire NAU Athletics Department in team GPA. A total of 14 student-athletes earned the Golden Eagle Scholar-Athlete Award and eight Lumberjacks were named to the Big Sky All-Academic list this past year.
Western Illinois sat atop the WBCA Division I list with a GPA of 3.767, followed by North Dakota State (3.756) and Robert Morris (3.713).
