KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The W men's basketball team put the finishing touches on what was a season of accomplishments by having the 2024-25 squad earn the prestigious National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Team Academic Award. Additionally, seven individuals were recognized on the NABC Honors Court for their academic prowess.

The NABC's academic awards are presented annually to teams and athletes from all levels of college basketball. Overall, more than 2,400 players earned spots on the NABC Honors Court, and 388 programs received NABC Team Academic Excellence Awards for 2024-25. 

The NABC Team Academic Excellence Awards recognize programs that completed the academic year with a team grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 or higher. The NABC Honors Court, meanwhile, includes junior, senior, and graduate student men's basketball players who finished the year with a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or higher.

As a unit, The W men's team posted a 3.295 GPA for the year and marked the first time in school history that the Owls' team has earned the NABC award. Seven of the 10 MUW players who were eligible for NABC Honors Court consideration garnered the organization's accolades. The septet included Cam Smith (Sr./Falkner, Miss./Kinesiology), Dariun Doss (5th/Reform, Ala./Kinesiology), Eric Bass Jr. (Jr./Baltimore, Md./Business Management), Isaiah Ball (Sr./New Albany, Miss./Business), Jackson Reid (Gr./New Braunfels, Texas/MBA), Josh Dukes (Sr./Booneville, Miss./Business Administration), and Trent Walker (Jr./Hastings, Fla./Business Administration).

"Education is one of the NABC's five core values, and we are proud to recognize the academic accomplishments of these programs and individual student-athletes across our sport," said NABC Executive Director Craig Robinson. "The dedication and hard work of these athletes, along with their coaches and support staff members who prioritize academic success, deserve to be widely celebrated."

The Owls were the only team from the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference's (SLIAC) 10 men's basketball programs to appear among the NABC Team Academic Award winners for 2024-25. In all, 17 individual players from SLIAC institutions were cited (41 percent of those being MUW's student-athletes).

"This is certainly a nice 'ribbon' to put on the 2024-2025 academic year for our program. We consistently emphasize with our guys the academic, the service, and the on-court components to try and help in developing the full man," MUW Head Coach Dean Burrows explained. "It's well known at this point that our guys more than answered the call when it came to serving those in our city, region, and state this past year. We made progress on the court, as well. But what this group accomplished - individually and collectively - this past year in the classroom is a tremendous honor that we committed to working toward at our first team meeting last fall. 

"And I believe it's worth noting that this does not factor in the great job that our two graduate assistants (Brye Hopkins and Andrew Shepherd) did academically, on top of their numerous other responsibilities." 

Burrows' young charges cobbled together some pretty impressive "pieces" in all three of the team's aforementioned foundational areas - Classroom, Competition, and Community – to form the completed mosaic of the 2024-25 campaign. You might say that the Owls got "straight A's" in their "three C's". Academically, in addition to the NABC honors, The W student-athletes garnered numerous classroom recognitions, including two College Sports Communicators Academic All-District awards, one SLIAC Academic All-Conference member, one induction into the Chi Alpha Sigma Athletic Honors Society, and eight student-athletes named to the Athletic Director's Honor Roll. Six degrees were conferred on program members, as well (two by student assistants and four by players).  
 
As for giving back to the community, Owls Men's Basketball set the gold standard, amassing more than 400 total hours of service. The team made multiple visits to each elementary school in the area, greeting children as they arrived at school, crafting, reading, and eating lunch with them during visits. They prepared lunches for a local mission, unloaded tons of gourds for a local church's fundraiser Pumpkin Patch, wrapped Christmas gifts for needy children, visited the Children's of Mississippi Hospital during a road trip to Jackson, and helped fundraise for their own team's budget by working concessions at Mississippi State football games. The Owls were also awarded the MUW Student Life Collaboration Commitment Award in recognition of their innovation in working with the community and campus constituents.

In just its seventh season of existence, the 2024-25 team posted many on-court milestones along the way. Its 12 victories were the most in a season, and The W also qualified for the SLIAC post-season tournament (as the No. 4-seed) for the first time. Owls also picked up SLIAC honors with one all-conference (Doss), an all-sportsmanship team selection (Josh Dukes), an all-defensive team member (Doss), the SLIAC's Sixth Man of the Year (Bass Jr.), and a post-season all-tournament pick (Smith). SLIAC Player of the Week and D3Hoops.com national Team of the Week awards were also garnered (by Bass Jr.). MUW also set a total of 21 team and individual school records this past campaign, along the way.

And earning the NABC's academic honors proved to be the perfect exclamation mark to the summary of The W men's basketball 2024-25 season and Burrows' three-pronged plan for the program's success.