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Pittsburgh's Jamie Dixon earns mid-season honors
 

March 2, 2009

BOSTON (MA) -- The ten finalists for the 2009 Jim Phelan national coach of the year award were announced on Monday.

Pittsburgh’s Jamie Dixon, who received mid-season Phelan Award honors, headlines a group, which includes two coaches in their first seasons at their respective schools.

Trent Johnson is in his first year at LSU after successful stops at Stanford and Nevada, leading both programs to the sweet 16. Darrin Horn is completing his first full season at South Carolina after an a successful run at Western Kentucky, which culminated with a trip to the sweet sixteen.

“This is an outstanding group of coaches,” says Jim Phelan who is the chairman of the award committee. “Every one of the coaches on the list is deserving of coach of the year honors.”

The remaining seven finalists include Jim Calhoun (Connecticut), John Calipari (Memphis), Lorenzo Romar (Washington), Bill Self (Kansas), Brad Stevens (Butler),
Bruce Weber (Illinois) and Roy Williams (North Carolina).

John Calipari and Brad Stevens were among the finalists following the 2007-08 season.

The Jim Phelan Award is given annually to the nation’s top coach, as voted on by the 20-member panel. The winner will be presented with the award at the 2009 Final Four in Detroit.

Prior to 2003 the award was known simply as the CollegeInsider.com national coach of the year. It was renamed to honor longtime Mount St. Mary’s head coach Jim Phelan who retired following the 2002-03 season.

The previous winners of the award are Bo Ryan (Wisconsin) 2008, Tony Bennett (Washington State) 2007, Ben Howland (UCLA) 2006, Tubby Smith (Kentucky) 2005, Phil Martelli (St. Joseph’s) 2004 and Mark Slonaker (Mercer) 2003.