Catawba Valley women’s basketball earns NJCAA academic honors

Catawba Valley Community College’s women’s basketball program joined baseball and softball in earning NJCAA Academic Team of the Year honors for the 2025-26 academic year, a clean snapshot of a department that is winning in the classroom as much as it is trying to win on the floor. For junior-college basketball prospects and their families, that matters because the academic side is not separate from the transfer path; it is the part that keeps it alive.

The NJCAA’s team award is not based on reputation or roster size. Programs are recognized when they post a team grade-point average of at least 3.0, which makes the honor a direct measure of how well an entire roster handled the load of practice, travel, classes and game prep. That is the part that makes CVCC’s women’s basketball recognition stand out. It says the Red Hawks did not just keep a few players eligible, they kept the group moving in the same direction through the season.

CVCC athletics highlighted the honor with a headline reading “3 Red Hawk programs earn NJCAA Academic Team of the Year,” and the college’s athletics homepage also pointed to “32 Red Hawk student athletes named NJCAA All-Academic.” Put together, those numbers show more than a one-off academic spike. They show a department-wide standard that reaches beyond one roster and into the way the program is run, from the coaches to the academic support structure around the athletes.

That structure matters in women’s basketball, where a strong classroom record can be a selling point for recruits who want more than a stopover. Families weighing the junior-college route want to know two things: will the player develop, and will she stay on track to move up? Academic honors answer the second question in hard numbers, and they are the kind of detail coaches use when they talk about eligibility, retention and four-year opportunities.

The wider NJCAA picture backs that up. NIACC’s women’s basketball team posted a 3.55 team GPA in a July 31 academic honors release, while its softball team finished at 3.69. McCook Community College then said all six of its athletic teams earned NJCAA All-Academic recognition on Aug. 6. CVCC’s women’s basketball honor fits that same national standard, and it gives the Red Hawks another recruiting point in Hickory, where Tisha England is listed by athletics as director of athletic operations and intramurals for 2025-26.