As its name implies, the BCAM is the leading group of high school basketball coaches in the state, and its awards are limited to schools where the coach is a member.

A look on the group’s website, however, shows the vast majority of varsity head coaches and/or schools around the state are members, and in The Mining Journal regular coverage area, that includes both boys and girls coaches at the high schools in Marquette, Negaunee, Ishpeming, Westwood, Gwinn, Munising, L’Anse and Baraga.

In the two earliest parts of this series last week, we looked at the girls’ seven awards.

And on Wednesday, we looked at the boys performance awards — BCAM Best and Top Shooters. Today, the last part of this series, we’ll look at the boys’ five nonperformance awards, including Coach of the Year.

Munising’s Trevor Nolan, right, protects the ball while Marine City Cardinal Mooney’s Domninc Cattivera defends during their MHSAA Division 4 state semifinal played on March 23, 2023, at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center in East Lansing. (Photo courtesy MHSAA)

Here is a look at the five non-player-performance awards:

Academic awards

The Mustangs’ Carson Kienitz and Trevor Nolan each earned the group’s two academic awards for players, the Individual Academic All-State honor and the Outstanding Senior Student-Athlete Award.

The individual academic award goes to players who are nominated by their member coach, is a junior or senior, has a grade-point average of at least 3.50 on a 4.00 scale, and been listed for an all-state honor released by The Associated Press, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News or be on the BCAM Best list.

So actually, this particular award does have a performance basis in it.

Munising's Trevor Nolan, right, is defended by Ishpeming's Hunter Smith in the third quarter of their high school boys basketball game held at the Hematites’ gym in Ishpeming on Thursday, Dec. 28, 2023. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

The outstanding senior honor has an even higher bar academically, at least 3.80, for those who are seniors. The Munising pair realized that standard, too, with Kienitz carrying a perfect 4.00 GPA and Nolan at 3.90.

Four other area players also made it onto one of these two honor groups.

In the Individual Academic All-State award, of which a count showed 103 players statewide attained, that group includes senior Jaxon Jurmu of Marquette with a 3.695 GPA and junior Ethan Marta of Westwood at 3.511.

For the Outstanding Senior Student-Athlete Award, Brady Mager of Negaunee earned this honor with a 3.947 GPA while Mason Bancroft of Ishpeming comes in at 3.8809.

A third academic award goes to full squads, the All-State Academic Award Teams.

Two Marquette County teams made this list, which is the All-State honor for units with a “weighted team GPA” above 3.30 and Honorable Mention for those above 3.00.

Both in Division 3, Ishpeming had the 22nd best GPA among those size teams statewide with a 3.5466 GPA to be named All-State, while Westwood was 47th overall and Honorable Mention at 3.1989 GPA.

Leading the state in D-3 was Ottawa Lake Whiteford with a 3.8234 GPA.

Some other U.P. players and schools also made these lists.

For Individual Academic All-State, senior Morgan Sleik of Kingsford had a perfect 4.00 GPA, while senior teammate Gavin Grondin was at 3.528.

Norway senior Cole Baij is at 3.989 GPA, Ewen-Trout Creek senior Austin Gordon at 3.956, Pickford junior Gunner Bennin at 3.854 and Menominee junior Tanner Theuerkauf at 3.63.

On the Outstanding Senior Student-Athlete Award list, several players actually had GPAs above 4.00. From Norway, there was Baij at 4.097, which was curious as he was listed at 3.989 for the other award, along with teammates AJ Gallino at 4.08 and Bryce Adams at 4.048.

For Kingsford, Sleik again was at 4.00 while teammate Gavin Trevillian was at 4.125.

Others in this listing were, from Rudyard, Ethan Hoolsema with a 3.952 GPA; from Pickford, Owen McConkey at 3.926 and Tommy Storey at 3.91; and from Bessemer, Gabe Harju at 3.88 and Connor Johnson at 3.86.

On the All-State Academic Teams, Kingsford was the lone U.P. team to crack the top 10 in 10th place in Division 2 with a 3.6702 GPA as Freeland led the way at 3.8441.

In Division 3, Menominee had to go three decimal places to break a tie with Ishpeming, the Maroons coming in 21st at 3.5473, while Calumet was 34th at 3.3405.

All those schools made All-State, as did four U.P. schools in Division 4 — Cedarville 13th at 3.5208, Norway 15th at 3.4975, Rudyard 20th at 3.4448 and North Central 22nd at 3.4242.

Honorable mentions went to three U.P. schools in Division 4 — Bessemer was 33rd overall at 3.2185 GPA, Mid Peninsula 35th at 3.1842 and Pickford 37th at 3.1363.

Jackson Christian led that division at 3.7592, while in Division 1, the leader was Rockford at 3.8851.

Team First

Member coaches had the opportunity to honor one player on their team with the Team First Award for the player who most exemplifies putting team before self, along with the players’ teamwork, commitment, service and sacrifice.

Five area players earned this honor — Parker Saunders of Marquette, Ian Engstrom of Negaunee, Ben Salzwedel of Westwood, Mason Bancroft of Ishpeming and Gavin Radloff of Munising.

Other U.P. players honored with this award were Gabe Harju of Bessemer, Trent Halonen of Calumet, Chase Goll of E-TC, Drew Ramme of Iron Mountain, Landon Buerger of Ironwood, Gavin Trevillian of Kingsford, Dylan Beal of Menominee, Alex Norden of Mid Peninsula, Owen McConkey of Pickford and Camron Willis of Rudyard.

Coach of the Year

Westwood’s Luke Gray earned 208 points in voting among U.P. BCAM members to be named Region 15 Coach of the Year, the region encompassing the entire U.P.

Also nominated were Rich Ledy of Marquette and former Gwinn coach Ben Olsen, who now coaches the boys varsity at Kingsford and was runner-up for the regional honor.

The other nominated coaches in the region were Tracy Peterson of Pickford and Jason Price of Forest Park.

The U.P. didn’t have any of the statewide coaches of the year, which included Ray Mitchell of East Lansing as Boys’ Overall Coach of the Year, along with winners in each of the four divisions — Steve Brooks of Wayne Memorial in Division 1, Derek Clark of Romulus Summit North in Division 2, Kris Daiek of Riverview Gabriel Richard in Division 3 and Paul Koepke of Bellaire in Division 4.

This is the fourth and final part about the high school awards distributed by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan. Story contents based on an examination of the BCAM website, bcam.org/bcam-awards-published/. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.