Lansing Sun

Michigan State University (MSU) baseball has been awarded the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Team Academic Excellence Award for the eighth consecutive year.

The ABCA recognized over 800 member college and high school programs across the United States with the 2023-24 Team Academic Excellence Award, presented by Sports Attack. This accolade honors teams coached by ABCA members that achieved a GPA of 3.0 or above on a 4.0 scale for the entire academic year.

Nearly 350 high school programs and more than 470 collegiate programs received this year's award.

"It's an honor to earn the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award for the eighth year in a row," MSU head coach Jake Boss Jr. said. "We're extremely proud to be the only Big Ten team to have won this award the last eight years. Our players are dedicated to putting in the hard work to fully define the term student-athlete, with everything that goes into that in the classroom and on the baseball field. Once again, it's due in large part to our academic advisor Melissa Tallant; she gets the most out of our guys, and we're very appreciative of her hard work with them."

MSU recorded a cumulative GPA of 3.399 for the 2023-24 academic year.

"I consider myself privileged to work with this tremendous group of student-athletes and coaches," associate director of MSU Student-Athlete Support Services Melissa Tallant said. "It has become a sense of pride for these baseball players to earn this honor, and they work very hard to make sure that they're not the group that the streak stops with, so it's a good motivator for them to commit to working hard in the classroom to reach that success. I'm proud of them for continuing to be diligent in reaching this goal for an eighth-straight year."

Michigan State was one of seven Big Ten teams on the 130-team Division I list, marking three consecutive years with MSU posting the most Big Ten teams among ABCA's records over nine years. MSU is unique in having been on each list for eight years. In previous years, other Big Ten teams have joined Michigan State sporadically: Minnesota in 2017; Illinois and Ohio State in 2020; Illinois and Rutgers during 2020-21; Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue, and Rutgers in 2022; and Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Northwestern, and Purdue in 2023. This season includes Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, and Purdue alongside Michigan State.

B1G Teams Receiving ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award:

2015-16 - None

2016-17 - Michigan State, Minnesota

2017-18 - Michigan State

2018-19 - Michigan State

2019-20 - Michigan State, Illinois, Ohio State

2020-21 - Michigan State, Illinois, Rutgers

2021-22 - Michigan State, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue,Rutgers

2022-23 - Michigan State ,Illinois ,Indiana ,Minnesota ,Northwestern,Purdue

2023-24 - Michigan State ,Indiana ,Michigan,Minnesota,Nothwestern,Purdue