The Lake Forest College men's basketball team was among those honored for their work in the classroom on Wednesday with a Team Academic Excellence Award from the National Association of Basketball Coaches Association (NABC).
The NABC Team Academic Excellence Awards were created by the NABC Committee on Academics and are in their sixth year. The awards recognize outstanding academic achievement by a team with a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or better for the 2017-18 season. In order to earn a NABC Team Academic Excellence Award, institutions in the NCAA, NAIA and NJCAA must count the grade point averages of all men's student-athletes who competed during the 2017-18 season.
Lake Forest was one of 186 programs on the list. Six of the team's 12 members were also recently named Academic All-Midwest Conference after posting grade point averages of at least 3.33 during the 2017-18 academic year.
The Foresters finished the 2017-18 season with a 17-9 overall record and a 13-5 mark in conference play. They advanced to the four-team MWC Tournament for the third year in a row, the longest such streak since joining the league in 1974.
Located in Kansas City, Missouri, the NABC was founded in 1927 by Phog Allen, the legendary basketball coach at the University of Kansas. Allen, a student of James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, organized coaches into this collective group to serve as Guardians of the Game. The NABC currently has nearly 5,000 members consisting primarily of university and college men's basketball coaches. All members of the NABC are expected to uphold the core values of being a Guardian of the Game by bringing attention to the positive aspects of the sport of basketball and the role coaches play in the academic and athletic lives of today's student-athletes. The four core values of being a Guardian of the Game are advocacy, leadership, service and education. For additional information about the NABC, its programs and membership, visit nabc.org.