Six Tide Basketball Players Named Academic All-SEC
4/9/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
April 9, 2008
TUSCALOOSA - The Southeastern Conference released its 2007-08 SEC Winter Academic Honor Roll on Wednesday and it included a school record six University of Alabama basketball players, bettering the 2001 mark of five.
Alabama led the league in men's basketball with the six. Tennessee and Kentucky both had five. Florida had three. Vanderbilt, Auburn, Mississippi State and Arkansas had two. And Georgia, Ole Miss, South Carolina and LSU had one.
The six men who were honored by the league office on Wednesday included two-time honoree Greg Cage who will graduate within just three years of enrolling when he gets his degree in May in psychology and criminal justice. Cage, a redshirt his true freshman season, has already been accepted into a dual degree program at Alabama in the fall where he will go to graduate school for an MBA and also law school to obtain a law degree. Joining Cage is junior All-SEC forward Richard Hendrix who will also make program history with Cage in May by obtaining his degree within just three years. Hendrix is public relations major. John Dill, who graduated from Alabama in December with a degree in history, became a two-time award winner. Sophomore Demetrius Jemison, who had a perfect 4.0 in the fall, made the team for his grades in his business classes, and sophomore Justin Tubbs, a business major, and senior Kyle Sellers, a management major, rounded out Alabama's list. Sellers will graduate this spring as well.
"What our players do academically is of the highest importance," said Alabama head coach Mark Gottfried who has graduated 26 of a possible 27 seniors since 2000 (the 27th is Jermareo Davidson who is playing in the NBA). "I'm very proud of our players and the work they do and the commitment they have in the classroom."
Since he has been Alabama's head coach beginning with the 1998-99 season, Gottfried, an Academic All-SEC player at Alabama in 1987, has produced 28 Academic All-SEC award winners. The Academic All-SEC Honor Roll requires student-athletes to have a 3.00 or above grade point average for the preceding academic year or have a 3.00 or better cumulative GPA at the nominating institution. Freshman are honored on a separate honor roll released at the end of the academic year.
The University of Alabama produced 44 of the 367 student-athletes named to the 2007-08 Winter Academic Honor Roll which includes basketball, swimming and diving, rifle, bowling and gymnastics.
