Levi Randolph

Levi Randolph is expected to help fill the void left by Trevor Releford this season. (Vasha Hunt/vhunt@al.com)

Alabama senior guard Levi Randolph was named a Capital One second-team Academic All-American on Thursday, becoming the first-ever Crimson Tide basketball player to be named an Academic All-American.

Alabama's senior captain, Randolph, who is averaging a team-best 14.8 points per game, received his undergraduate degree in marketing in August, graduating in three years while compiling a 3.45 grade point average.

A three-time Capital One Academic All-District IV first-team honoree, Randolph is the first player in program history to earn first-team Academic All-District honors in three consecutive seasons.

"We are extremely proud of and excited for Levi to be recognized as an Academic All-American and Alabama's first honoree in the sport of men's basketball," Tide coach Anthony Grant said in a statement. "He has worked extremely hard from Day One to achieve this goal, and it's great to see him realize it. Levi epitomizes what the term student-athlete is all about."

Randolph is the only basketball player from the SEC to be named a Capital One Academic All-American.

"I can't put into words how honored I am to earn the program's first Academic All-American award," said Randolph, who began taking graduate-level courses for a master's degree in marketing during the fall and finished his first semester of grad school with a 3.75 GPA. "I would like to thank my family, coaches and teammates for their support during my career and helping push me -- not just as a basketball player, but as a student-athlete. It feels good to see the hard work I've put in both on and off the court has paid off and helped me achieve this goal.

"My father always told me that a person can stand on a book a lot longer than they can stand on a basketball, and that's just always something I've lived by."