SPRINGFIELD, Mass.-- Five student-athletes were named to the 2009 America East Women’s Basketball All-Academic Team Thursday morning at the annual awards banquet held at the National Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. Four schools and four academic majors were represented on the team.
Vermont junior guard May Kotsopoulos (Waterloo, Ontario/Waterloo Collegiate), the 2008 America East Women’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete, and teammate senior guard Amy Rosenkrantz (Tempe, Ariz./Corona del Sol) are repeat selections. Kotsopoulos also earned second-team all-conference and all-defensive team recognition at the banquet.
UMBC’s Meghan Colabella (Montclair, N.J./Montclair), a sophomore forward, had the highest grade point average of the five team-members, with a 3.87 in History. Maine junior forward Brittany Boser (Palmer, Mass./Palmer) and Stony Brook sophomore guard Jodie Plikus (Waterford, Conn./Waterford) were also recognized for their performances on the court and in the classroom.
The All-Academic squads are a product of the June 2005 Athletics Director meetings, where faculty representatives and athletics directors from each of the conference’s nine member institutions decided to honor the league’s top student-athletes, whom excel equally in the classroom as they do on the playing field.
For the last two academic years, the All-Academic Team has been selected based on a formula. Starting this year, America East has adopted a more subjective approach based on feedback from various coaches’ groups and administrators and approval by the athletic directors. The process will now resemble the CoSIDA’s Academic All-America program. Student-athletes worthy of consideration will now be nominated by member sports information directors and voted on by committee of SIDs, academic advisors and faculty representatives from all nine member institutions.
All-Academic squads for team sports are based on the number of athletes that participate in a contest at one time or are made up of 10 student-athletes for individual sports. To be nominated for the distinction, student-athletes must be a starter or important reserve for their team and participate in at least 50 percent of their team’s games or competitions. In the classroom, student-athletes must have a 3.30 GPA and have completed at least one calendar year at their institution. Freshman are not eligible for consideration.