Academic All-America Teams
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. ââ'¬" National Player of the Year and All-America candidate Caleb Swanigan has added a significant academic honor to his resume, being voted a second-team Academic All-American as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
One-of-15 players selected to three teams, Swanigan is one of three sophomores (Swanigan, BYU's Eric Mika, Elon's Tyler Siebring) voted Academic All-America and is 1-of-3 players (Swanigan, Florida's Canyon Berry, Vanderbilt's Luke Kornet) from a power-six conference (Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Pac-12, Big East, Big 12) named to either of the three teams.
Among players on the team, only Swanigan, Gonzaga's Nigel Williams-Goss and Valparaiso's Alec Peters are considered All-America candidates on the court.
Swanigan boasts a 3.30 GPA in general education / education studies. He has spent hours in local classrooms around the area as a student-teaching volunteer and aspires to be a teacher to be able to "make a difference in thousands of kids' lives".
Swanigan is Purdue's first Academic All-American since E'Twaun Moore in 2010. Swanigan will likely become the first Purdue player since Dave Schellhase in 1965 to earn either first-, second- or third-team All-American accolades on the court and in the classroom. Both Moore and Keith Edmonson (1982) were named honorable mention All-America on the hardwood.
On the court, Swanigan is a five-time recipient of Big Ten Player of the Week honors and a frontrunner for every major national award this season.
For the season, Swanigan is averaging 18.6 points, 12.5 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game while shooting 54.0 percent from the field, 45.5 percent from 3-point range and 79.3 percent from the free throw line. He leads the nation in double-doubles (24) and is second in rebounding (12.5). With just one league game remaining, Swanigan leads the Big Ten (league games only) in both scoring (18.9 PPG) and rebounding (12.5 RPG) and would become just the eighth player in Big Ten history to accomplish that feat.
Swanigan has set a school record with 24 double-doubles which is tied for the fifth most in Big Ten history and is just two shy of the all-time Big Ten record set by Ohio State's Jerry Lucas (1960, 1961, 1962) and Brad Sellers (1986).
Swanigan is on pace to become just the second player nationally since the 1992-93 season to score 600 points, grab 400 rebounds and dish out 100 assists, joining Towson's Jerrelle Benimon (2013-14) on the list. The feat has not been done by a major-college player in the last 25 years.
Swanigan is also on pace to average a career double-double, something not done at Purdue since Dave Schellhase from 1964-66, 51 years ago. It has been accomplished by just three players in school history (Schellhase, Terry Dischinger, Don Beck).
He became the school's single-season rebounds record-holder in the win over Penn State on Feb. 21, and now has 376 rebounds this year, smashing the existing school record of 352 set by Joe Barry Carroll during the 1978-79 campaign. Over the last 25 seasons, the most rebounds by a Big Ten player is 416 by Iowa's Reggie Evans during the 2000-01 season.
Swanigan and the Boilermakers will close out the regular season Sunday at Northwestern, beginning at 4:30 p.m. ET, and televised by CBS. A win over the Wildcats will give Purdue its first outright Big Ten title since the 1995-96 season.
