NEW YORK—Villanova had five teams recognized with BIG EAST Team Academic Excellence awards in an announcement made by the conference office on Thursday afternoon. The teams recognized include men's basketball, men's indoor track & field, women's indoor track & field, men's outdoor track & field and women's outdoor track & field. The release was the first in a series of conference academic honors which will be revealed in the coming weeks. The Team Academic Excellence awards are presented to the 22 teams which have the highest GPA in each sport sponsored by the conference. The five honors for the Wildcats are the most Villanova has had in a single year.
 
The winners of the Team Academic Excellence awards are chosen based on the 2020-21 grade point average of each student-athlete who appeared on an institution's roster as of the last contest of the championship segment in each conference-sponsored sport. Villanova teams have combined to win 21 Team Academic Excellence awards over the past 11 years. Each of the five Wildcats teams to be recognized excelled this year in both the classroom and in athletic competition. The men's basketball team won the BIG EAST regular season title for the seventh time in the last eight years and advanced to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament, while the men's and women's track & field teams each had individual qualifiers for the NCAA Championships both indoors and outdoors.
 
This is the fourth time in the last eight years that men's basketball has won the Team Academic Excellence Award. Villanova posted a 3.461 GPA in 2020-21 and had nine student-athletes named to the Athletic Director's Honor Roll for the Fall 2020 semester. During the season the Wildcats went 18-7 overall and 11-4 in BIG EAST regular season action. Villanova advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the 16^th time in the last 17 years. Collin Gillespie and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl were part of a three-way tie for BIG EAST Player of the Year. Gillespie was selected by the USBWA as a third team All-American and earned second team Senior CLASS All-American honors.
 
The women's track & field team recorded a 3.679 GPA in 2020-21 and the men's track & field team came in with a 3.469 mark. The men's team had 39 student-athletes on the Athletic Director's Honor Roll in the fall and the women's team had 34 student-athletes recognized. Earlier on Wednesday the teams had a combined three student-athletes named to the Academic All-District teams announced by CoSIDA.
 
Despite not having an indoor BIG EAST meet this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the men's and women's indoor track & field teams each qualified athletes for the NCAA Championships. Middle distance runner Sean Dolan qualified on the men's side and became the 43^rd member of the program's sub-four minute mile club, while sprinter McKenna Keegan and high jumper Sanaä Barnes qualified from the women's team.
 
The outdoor track & field teams had a more typical season of competition. The women's team won its third straight outdoor BIG EAST title and the men came in second at the conference championships. The two teams combined to have 19 student-athletes qualify for the NCAA East Preliminary meet, with Keegan and Barnes once again reaching the NCAA Championships where they were joined by men's distance runners Casey Comber and Haftu Strintzos.
 
The upcoming release of BIG EAST academic honors in the coming weeks will include the BIG EAST All-Academic Team, individual Scholar-Athlete Sport Excellence Award winners, the overall men's and women's Scholar-Athlete of the Year and the winners of the Mike Tranghese Postgrad Leadership Award.