America East Conference proudly annouced the 2006-07 America East Men’s Basketball All-Academic Team at the annual awards brunch held at Fenway Park’s State Street Pavilion on Friday morning. Five student-athletes were honored for their achievements athletically and academically.
Vermont’s Martin Klimes (Prague, Czech Rep./Walsingham (Va.) Acad.) and UMBC’s Brian Hodges (Upper Marlboro, Md./Bishop McNamara) highlight the squad for the second-consecutive season. Joining Klimes and Hodges on the team is Albany’s Brian Lillis (Urbandale, Iowa/West Des Moines Dowling), Boston University’s Tyler Morris (Indianapolis, Ind./Lawrence North) and Stony Brook’s Ricky Lucas (Herndon, Va./Herndon/George Washington).
Klimes, a third-team all-conference and all-defensive selection, leads the all-academic squad with a 3.84 grade-point average. Hodges, a second-teamer, follows closely with a 3.52 GPA. Lillis, Defensive Player of the Year, Morris, Rookie of the Year, and Lucas, a third-teamer, also boast GPAs higher than 3.0.
The All-Academic squads are a product of the June 2005 Athletics Director meetings. Faculty representatives and athletics directors from each of the conference’s nine member institutions decided to honor some of the league’s top athletes that are also quality students.
Each All-Academic Team has been selected based on the student-athlete’s academic and athletic accomplishments. Academic achievement for consideration requires student-athletes to have a minimum cumulative grade-point average of 3.00 entering the season. Athletic accomplishment standards vary between team sports and individual sports. For team sports, student-athletes are required to be a nomination on the post-season awards ballot, which is determined by the league’s head coaches. Team size for team sports is based on the number of athletes that participate in a contest at one time (e.g., five on the court for basketball). In the event that the number of student-athletes meeting the requirements is greater than the number that participate in a contest at one time, all-conference vote totals were used as the tie-breaking criteria.