KANSAS CITY, Mo. – For the third time in as many years, the Suffolk men's basketball team was acknowledged for academics as the Rams were recognized with a Team Academic Excellence Award by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), the organization announced Thursday morning.

The award, which was created by the NABC Committee on Academics, has honored institutions in the NCAA, NAIA and NJCAA for academic achievements over the last seven years. The Rams have been on that list in each of the last three seasons.

Since the blue-and-gold made its debut on the list in 2016-17, the Rams have been joined by only one other conference counterpart, Saint Joseph's (Maine. This year is no different as Suffolk is just one of two members of the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) to earn the distinction with the Monks joining Jeff Juron's team with the distinguished accolade for the second straight season.

In order to achieve NABC Team Academic Excellence Award status, which started in 2012-13, programs must achieve a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or better during the 2017-18 academic year.

See a full list of winners.