DePaul University’s men’s basketball team has once again been recognized with the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Team Academic Excellence Award, marking the second consecutive year the Blue Demons have received the honor. The accolade celebrates programs that maintain a collective grade point average of at least 3.0 across the 2025‑26 academic year.
A Legacy of Scholarship
This achievement adds to a storied history for the program, which has now been awarded the distinction eight times since the award’s inception. The consistent performance reflects the university’s broader philosophy of integrating scholarly rigor with competitive athletics.
The award is part of a larger landscape of academic recognition in college sports. For the 2024‑25 season, more than 2,300 individual players earned spots on the NABC Honors Court, while nearly 400 institutions were honored with the Team Academic Excellence Award, illustrating a growing emphasis on academic metrics within the sport.
Among the recognized student‑athletes are DePaul juniors Jeremy Lorenz and Ilijia Miliasevic, who each posted cumulative GPAs exceeding 3.2. Their inclusion on the NABC Honors Court underscores the depth of talent that balances rigorous academic pursuits with high‑level basketball competition.
Coach and athletic administrators attribute the sustained success to a culture that prioritizes time management, mentorship, and support services designed to help student‑athletes excel both on the court and in the classroom. The recognition serves as a model for other programs seeking to replicate such holistic development.