A National Best 10 Players Earn NABC Honor

MOORHEAD, Minn. (7/27/16)—Concordia had a nation-best 10 players earn National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Honors Court recognition for having at least a 3.20 grade point average.   

As a team the Cobbers also earned the prestigious NABC Team Academic Excellence Award for having a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0. It is the third straight season that Concordia has earned the NABC Team Academic Excellence Award.

Concordia's 10 players who received the Honors Court honor was more than any other NCAA Division I, II or III or any NAIA team in the country. It also sets a program record for most players to receive the award. Last year the Cobbers placed nine players on the Honors Court award list.

This year's recipients of the honor include Corey Abbas, Dylan Alderman, Brett Bergeson, Jordan Bolger, Casey Bruggeman, Matt Ellingson, Tom Fraase, Zach Kinny, Austin Nelson and Brady Syverson.

In order to achieve the Honors Court award student/athletes must be a junior or senior, have at least a 3.20 GPA and have played at least one season at their current institution.

The individual honors finish off a decorated award season for the Cobbers as Jordan Bolger was awarded an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship after earning NABC All-American honors.

The 10 individual award winners helped Concordia finish with a 3.40 cumulative GPA which earned their third straight NABC Team Academic Excellence Award. The Cobbers were one of only three schools in the MIAC to achieve the team recognition and one of only 124 NCAA Division I, II or III or NAIA schools in the entire nation to claim the academic honor.  

The 3.40 team GPA is the highest in the history of the program.    

In order to earn a NABC Team Academic Excellence Award, institutions in NCAA Division I, II, III, and NAIA Division I and II, must carry a team GPA of 3.00 or higher and count the grade point averages of all men's student athletes who competed during the 2014-15 season.

The 10 student/athletes who earned the NABC individual honor helped Concordia post a 16-10 overall record and a 13-7 mark in conference play in the 2015-16 season. The Cobbers finished in a tie for third place in the final MIAC standings and earned a spot in the conference playoffs for the third time in the past four seasons.