Saint Joseph’s men’s basketball team honored for academic excellence

Windham High graduate Nick Curtis
averaged 26 points per game for
the Saint Joseph College Monks
men's basketball team during
the 2019-2020 season.
PHOTO COURTESY OF
DAVID BATES PHOTOGRAPHY

 KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) has announced the eighth annual Team Academic Excellence Awards, created by the NABC Committee on Academics, and Saint Joseph's College is one of 313 teams from around the nation to earn the honor.

These awards recognize outstanding academic achievement by a college men’s basketball team with a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 or better for the 2019-20 season.

To earn an NABC Team Academic Excellence Award, institutions in the NCAA (all three divisions), NAIA and NJCAA must count the grade point averages of all men's student-athletes who competed during the 2019-20 season. The honor marks the third-consecutive year in which Saint Joseph's has claimed the national academic accolade.

Saint Joseph's is one of two teams from the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) to earn the academic accolade as Suffolk University joins the Monks on the distinguished list.

Also, St. Joe's is one of just four Maine institutions – along with Bates College, Maine Maritime Academy, and UMaine-Farmington - to claim academic honors this summer.

Under the watch of 17th-year Head Coach Rob Sanicola (Saint Joseph’s Class of 1999) this past winter, the Monks went 12-14 with a 6-5 GNAC record while en route to claiming the #5 seed in the conference tournament.

The Monks suffered a season-ending GNAC Quarterfinal loss at #4 Anna Maria College on Feb. 25. <