NEW ORLEANS – Eight different Sun Belt Conference institutions claimed top Team GPA Awards for the 2018-19 academic year, the league office announced on Wednesday.
The awards honor the teams with the top cumulative team grade point average in each of the sponsored sports within the Sun Belt from the 2018-19 academic year. For award purposes, Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field are counted as a single sport.
Georgia State led all schools with four teams apiece earning top GPAs in its respective sports. Coastal Carolina had three squads with the highest GPA. Little Rock, South Alabama and ULM each had two teams with the highest GPA on the list.
All told, 115 programs on the list registered a GPA of at least 3.0, with the overall highest team GPA coming from Coastal Carolina’s women’s golf team, which posted a 3.86 GPA for the 2018-19 academic year. Georgia State’s women’s cross country and women’s tennis teams each had team GPAs of 3.83, the second-highest amongst all Sun Belt programs in 2018-19. Little Rock’s women’s soccer team posted the third-highest team GPA at 3.78. All told, 67 percent of all Sun Belt programs recorded a team GPA over 3.0 during the academic year.
A total of five sports saw all of its teams post 3.0 or greater team GPAs during the academic year as women’s soccer, volleyball, women’s golf, women’s tennis and softball all posted GPAs 3.0 or greater.
Coastal Carolina led the league again with the most teams with GPAs over 3.0 for the academic year with 13. Georgia State had 11 and Appalachian State, ULM and South Alabama had ten. Every Sun Belt institution saw more than 50 percent of its respective sports teams with a team GPA over 3.0.
Listed below are the winners of each Team GPA Award by sport, with the team cumulative GPA also listed next to each winning team.
| Sport |
Institution |
GPA |
| Women’s Golf |
Coastal Carolina |
3.86 |
| Women’s Cross Country |
Georgia State |
3.83 |
| Women’s Tennis |
Georgia State |
3.83 |
| Women’s Soccer |
Little Rock |
3.78 |
| Volleyball |
Georgia State |
3.63 |
| Softball |
Troy |
3.54 |
| Men’s Cross Country |
South Alabama |
3.53 |
| Men’s Tennis |
Coastal Carolina |
3.53 |
| Men’s Soccer |
Georgia State |
3.52 |
| Men’s Golf |
ULM |
3.47 |
| Women’s Track & Field |
Appalachian State |
3.39 |
| Baseball |
Little Rock |
3.30 |
| Women’s Basketball |
Coastal Carolina |
3.22 |
| Men’s Track & Field |
South Alabama |
3.13 |
| Football |
Arkansas State |
2.86 |
| Men’s Basketball |
ULM |
2.86 |