Women's basketball cracks top-25...in the classroom

ORANGE, Calif. - In addition to reaching the NCAA Division III postseason for the ninth consecutive year in 2008-09, the Chapman University women's basketball team broke into the WBCA Academic Top-25 national rankings this season. The Panthers captured the No. 23 spot in the Division III poll with a 3.379 overall team grade-point average.

It's the first time Chapman's women's team has been ranked nationally in team GPA since 1999-00. That year the Panthers ranked No. 13 in Division III. It's also the first time the Panthers have been honored under the guidance of Carol Jue as head coach.

The Panthers had at least four regulars with GPAs of 3.7 or higher, including ESPN the Magazine Academic All-America selection Nicole Hayman (3.99 GPA) and sophomore Christina Ly (3.95 GPA).

Chapman finished the season with an overall record of 20-9 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament for the fourth time in six years. The Panthers also won 20 games for the third consecutive season.

Women's basketball joins a handful of other programs at Chapman to earn academic honors recently, including the Panthers' women's water polo team which led all divisions in team GPA for the 2008-09 academic year. Women's volleyball (2007) and women's softball (2006) have also earned top-25 rankings in their respective coaching associations.

The WBCA Academic Top-25 Team Honor Roll program awards teams throughout the nation that carry the highest grade-point averages for an entire season based on nominations submitted by WBCA-member head coaches. GPAs are calculated by dividing the total number of quality points earned by each student-athlete on an institution's roster in the given academic terms by the total number of hours earned by the team. The GPAs are rounded to the nearest thousandth of a point.