Congradulations to Pacific West Conference student-athletes in 2024-25 for their work in the classroom, where they reached unprecedented heights.

A record 2,728 of them can boast of a 3.0 cumulative grade point average or better through the end of the 2025 spring semester, placing them on the All-PacWest Academic Team for their particular sport. To qualify, student-athletes have to have that 3.0 grade-point average, completed at least two semesters at their institution and participated in regular season competition or redshirted in one of the 15 PacWest sponsored sports.

The 2,728 tops the previous bests of 1,900 in 2024, 1,822 in 2023 and 1,753 recipients in 2022. That is a 44 percent increase from a year ago.

Granted, three more schools joined the PacWest in 2024-25, giving the league 14 members, adding to the volume of student-athletes eligible for the award. Nonetheless, even when the conference has been at this many members in the past, the academic numbers were not nearly this high. 

Of that 2,728, an astounding 186 had a perfect 4.0 grade point average in their undergraduate or graduate studies. That tops the previous best of 125 in 2023-24, 118 perfect marks in 2022-23 and 81 in 2021-22. For further comparison, in 2020-2021, in what was a record at the time, there were 64 GPA's of 4.0. In 2019, there were 39 PacWest student-athletes that had a perfect 4.0.

The highest total for any men's team was the Biola track and field squad, which listed 41 student-athletes with a 3.0 GPA or higher. The Eagles were followed closely by the baseball teams from Vanguard (39) and Azusa Pacific (37). For the women, the Point Loma and Concordia track and field squads had a total of 40 scholar-athletes each. 

Totaling all sports in which each school competed, Biola led the way with 289 PacWest All-Academic members. Biola bettered its previous best of 239, set last year.  

Here is the list of Academic All-PacWest leaders by sport. 13 of the 15 sport leader recorded a higher number of student-athletes than the leader in 2023-24. 

Fall Sport Leaders
*Men's Cross Country: Biola (20)
*Women's Cross Country: Westmont (22)
*Men's Soccer: Dominican (35)
*Women's Soccer: Dominican (32)
*Volleyball: Biola (19)
Winter Sport Leaders
*Men's Basketball: Biola, Academy of Art, Fresno Pacific (13)
*Women's Basketball: Vanguard (18)
Spring Sport Leaders
*Baseball: Vanguard (39)
*Men's Golf: Jessup (10)
*Women's Golf: Biola+ (9)
*Softball: Dominican (25)
*Men's Tennis: Azusa Pacific, Colorado Mesa, Jessup (10)
*Women's Tennis: Dominican, Colorado Mesa (10)
*Men's Track and Field: Biola (41)
*Women's Track and Field: Point Loma, Concordia (40)
+Also the conference champion.