Villanova names 390 student-athletes to 2023-24 BIG EAST All-Academic Team

NEW YORK-The latest awards for the academic achievements of Villanova’s student-athletes were announced Monday afternoon, as the BIG EAST Conference announced the BIG EAST All-Academic Team for the 2023-24 academic year. Villanova athletics has been selected to the conference’s All-Academic Team a total of 390 times, an increase of just over 15 percent from the previous year. This is the ninth consecutive year that more than 300 Wildcats student-athletes have been recognized. Villanova competes in the BIG EAST in 21 of its 24 varsity sports.


Nominations for the All-Academic Team are submitted by each of BIG EAST’s 11 member schools and six partner institutions. To be eligible for the award, a candidate must have participated in a BIG EAST-sponsored sport, earned a grade point average of at least 3.00 in the previous school year, and completed at least two consecutive semesters or three consecutive quarters of academic work totaling 18 semester or 27 quarter credits, not including remedial courses.


There will be 3,150 honorees on the BIG EAST All-Academic Team for the 2023-24 academic year. The total number of honorees is just over 100 more student-athletes than in 2022-23.


Monday’s announcement was the latest in a series of conference academic awards to be announced this summer. Last week, Villanova’s field hockey team was recognized with a BIG EAST Team Academic Excellence Award for having the best team GPA among the conference’s eight field hockey teams, and later this week, the BIG EAST Individual Sport Excellence Award winners will be announced.


The commitment of Villanova student-athletes to their academic goals is widely recognized. In June, the Wildcats were one of only seven Division I athletic programs nationwide to have 13 of their varsity sports achieve a perfect score of 1,000 in the NCAA Academic Progress Rate (APR).


Later that same month, Villanova Athletics announced its academic data for the spring 2024 semester, with student-athletes earning a 3.489 GPA for the most recent grading period. It was the 13th of November.^th Consecutive semester in which the Wildcats student-athletes’ grade point average was above 3.3. The department has also rated all 24 varsity sports with a grade point average above 3.0 for the past five semesters.