ATLANTA – The Drake University women's basketball program ranked fourth in the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Coaches Association Academic Top 25 Team Honor Roll for the 2018-19 season with a 3.695 team grade point average, the WBCA announced Tuesday, July 23.
 
This year's award marks the sixth-straight season Drake, led by head coach Jennie Baranczyk, is ranked in the top 10 for the prestigious WBCA team academic honor. It also equals the best ranking for the program matching the 2014-15 squad which also ranked fourth in Division I.
 
The WBCA Academic Top 25 recognizes NCAA Division I, II and III; NAIA and junior/community college women's basketball teams across the nation that carry the highest combined grade point averages inclusive of all student-athletes on their rosters for the entire season. The 2018-19 season is the 24th in which the WBCA has compiled the honor rolls.
 
A team's GPA is calculated by dividing the total number of quality points earned by the total number of hours attempted by all team members in the academic terms (semesters or quarters) that the season spans. Weighted grades are converted to a 4.0 scale. The GPA's are rounded to the nearest thousandth of a point. Teams are nominated for the honor by a WBCA member head coach and a team must have a 3.000 or better GPA to be nominated.
 
Below is the top 10 for the 2018-19 WBCA Academic Top 25 for NCAA Division I:
 

Rank	Institution	Head Coach	GPA
1	Western Illinois University	JD Gravina	3.767
2	North Dakota State University	Maren Walseth	3.756
3	Robert Morris University	Charlie Buscaglia	3.713
4	Drake University	Jennie Baranczyk	3.695
5	University of South Dakota	Dawn Plitzuweit	3.690
6	University of Wyoming	Joe Legerski	3.688
7	Youngstown State University	John Barnes	3.668
8	University of Wisconsin-Green Bay	Kevin Borseth	3.641
9	Illinois State University	Kristen Gillespie	3.636
10	Lehigh University	Susan Troyan	3.625