INDIANAPOLIS—Villanova Athletics continues to shine among the brightest collegiate athletics programs in the country for its student-athletes' combination of academic and athletic success. New data on the Academic Progress Rate measure was released by the NCAA on Tuesday afternoon and Villanova had 11 of its varsity sport programs earn a perfect 1000 multi-year score. This is the fifth straight year in which data has been collected that the Wildcats have had 10 or more teams earn a 1000 score.
The 11 sport programs to achieve a perfect 1000 score in Tuesday's announcement are baseball, men's basketball, golf, men's swimming & diving, women's cross country, rowing, softball, women's soccer, women's tennis, women's track & field and water polo. Seven of the 11 teams have achieved a 1000 score for at least five consecutive years, led by women's tennis at nine consecutive years with a 1000 score as well as the golf and water polo programs which have had a 1000 score in eight straight years. Golf has achieved a perfect 1000 score 12 times and this past academic year (2021-22) led all Villanova varsity sports with the highest team GPA for both the Fall and Spring semesters.
This is the 16th year that Academic Progress Rate (APR) data has been collected for Division I schools. The metric provides a real-time measure of a sport program's academic performance based on points earned each semester by student-athletes for their academic standing and retention. A mark of 1000 represents a perfect score. Tuesday's release is the first in two years after a hiatus in 2020-21 and the announcement includes data for the most recent cohort of student-athletes who entered college from 2017-18 through 2020-21. Certain elements of the APR program, including public recognition for the highest achieving teams, remain suspended through Spring 2023.
Four of the 11 sport programs with a 1000 multi-year APR score in Tuesday's release reached national postseason competition during 2021-22, including the men's basketball and softball teams playing in their respective NCAA Tournaments and the women's cross country squad earning a team berth to the NCAA Championships. In addition, members of the women's track & field team qualified for the NCAA Championships during both the indoor and outdoor seasons. There were three teams who combined a 1000 APR score with having at least one All-American during the past year. Those sports were men's basketball (Collin Gillespie), women's track & field (McKenna Keegan, Sanaä Barnes) and water polo (Kaysie Stuba).
Villanova's elite performance in the APR program stands out when compered to other BIG EAST programs and Division I schools nationwide. Each of the Wildcats varsity programs reported a multi-year APR score above the national average for their sport. Villanova led all BIG EAST schools with the number of teams earning a 1000 multi-year score and was one of just 14 schools nationwide to have 11 or more teams with a 1000 score.
The baseball and men's basketball teams were each the only BIG EAST schools to have a 1000 multi-year score in their sport. Villanova stood out particularly well in the high-profile sports of men's basketball, women's basketball and football. There were only five men's basketball teams who played in the NCAA Tournament that earned a 1000 APR score. The women's basketball team was tied for third among BIG EAST programs with a score of 995 and the Wildcats CAA champion football team was fourth in the conference with a 976 score, significantly above the national average of 959 for FCS programs.
Villanova Athletics continues to achieve across-the-board academic success. During the Spring 2022 semester each of the Wildcats 24 varsity sports programs achieved a team GPA above a 3.0. The overall GPA for nearly 550 student-athletes during the spring semester was 3.425, marking 38 straight semesters above a 3.0 and 15 consecutive grading periods in which student-athlete GPA has been above a 3.2. There were 12 sports with a GPA of 3.5 or higher in Spring 2022 while 48 student-athletes representing 23 different teams posted a 4.0 GPA for the semester.
During the summer months there will be BIG EAST announcements of its annual Team Academic Excellence Awards, Scholar-Athlete Sport Excellence Awards and the 2021-22 BIG EAST All-Academic Team. Similar all-academic releases will be forthcoming from CAA Football, the Colonial Athletic Association (rowing) and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (water polo).
