Beilein among five finalists for Naismith Coach of the Year Award
John Beilein, already among the finalists for the Henry Iba National Coach of the Year Award, has now been named one of the five finalists for the Naismith Coach of the Year Award. The other finalists are Tony Bennett, Virginia; Larry Brown, SMU; Billy Donovan, Florida; and Gregg Marshall, Wichita State. The winner will be announced on April 6 in Dallas during the Final Four weekend.
From the Naismith press release:
John Beilein, University of Michigan: Beilein guided the Wolverines to a 25-8 record, his fifth 20-plus win season, and fourth straight, in seven years at U-M. Michigan won its first outright Big Ten title in 28 years, claiming the conference by three games. This season, U-M recorded wins over three straight top-10 opponents for the first time in school history, despite losing Tim Hardaway Jr. and 2013 Naismith Trophy winner Trey Burke to the NBA. U-M earned its first No. 1 seed at the Big Ten Tournament and reached the championship game for the first time since the inaugural event in 1998. Beilein was named the Big Ten's Coach of the Year by the media.
Michigan has a press release on this as well.
March 20th, 2014 at 10:34 AM ^
Marshall, to me anyway, is the only threat among that group.
After fighting through all those injuries and bad officiating, no Izzo?
March 20th, 2014 at 10:35 AM ^
No Tim Miles? GARBAGE.
March 20th, 2014 at 11:34 AM ^
With all his team has had to overcome? *cough*
March 20th, 2014 at 10:38 AM ^
Larry Brown makes the finalist list but his team didn't make the tournament. Yay committee.
March 20th, 2014 at 10:56 AM ^
Brown did a very good job, but SMU's strength of schedule would have been the worst in the field for an at-large team by a significant margin. That's why they were left out.
March 20th, 2014 at 10:38 AM ^
Marshall, Bennett, Beilein, Donovan, Brown, is how I'd rank that top five.
Larry Brown did a nice job at a historically crap program but Tim Miles ought to be ahead of him. I'd put Sean Miller up there too.
March 20th, 2014 at 10:39 AM ^
Miles should have replaced Brown in that list, imo. The others I'm ok with.
I think Marshall will almost certainly win it, with Bennett an outside possibility.
March 20th, 2014 at 11:10 AM ^
March 20th, 2014 at 11:39 AM ^
Maybe because his team is undefeated?
March 20th, 2014 at 10:40 AM ^
No question who the winner is. John Beilein.
Billy Donovan returned everyone didn't he? Same with Gregg Marshall basically (plus a weak conference)? Maybe Tony Bennett? But Virginia has been coming along for a couple years so in a way it should have been expected. Only Beilein lost his 3 best players (counting McGary) and is still rolling. Come on already, give it to him...
March 20th, 2014 at 11:17 AM ^
You won't get an argument from me, but everyone should keep in mind that how the teams do in the tourney—at least through the regional finals—could influence who the ultimate winner is. This isn't just based on the regular season.
One other point in Beilein's favor is that he's working with the tenth-youngest team in NCAA D-1. None of the other finalists has a team even close to that young. Virginia is the next youngest, tied for 100th.
March 20th, 2014 at 12:04 PM ^
Actually, I'm pretty sure Wichita State lost 3 starters from their team last year. And saying Virginia's success should have been expected is news to me and I don't think you can discredit Bennett's work there even if you did.
IME, it's going to be Bennett or Marshall. Beilein did an excellent job but one guy got his team undefeated and the other guy brought his team from nowhere to a 1-seed
March 20th, 2014 at 10:48 AM ^
Beilein has established himself as a top 5-10 coach in the country.
No other team lost the talent that Michigan lost this year and had the success that Michigan had this year. Losing Burke and Hardaway and McGary to injury and continuing to have the success that Michigan has had this year is a remarkable accomplishment.
March 20th, 2014 at 12:10 PM ^
is that we all worried about McGary and GRIII going pro last year (rightly) but we probably would've still been a top 10 team even if they had gone. I think Irvin and maybe Donnal could reasonably have accounted for GRIII as a starter and we would've been essentially the same team.
Basically, we could've lost four starters from last year's title game (the other being a true freshman) and still been a top 10 team this year. That's silly.
March 20th, 2014 at 10:52 AM ^
to other points made here, I'd say that Beilein didn't just set this team up, overcome his losses and let it go. Even after they'd started playing well, we've had some MAJOR challenges, including the "Stauskas guarded by little guys" thing, slow starts, etc.. He's overcome them all. He's just an amazing coach.
Rob
March 20th, 2014 at 11:15 AM ^
I would agree with this, and in addition, he's also overcome the loss of a major contributor by reforming and restructuring the team so that they could take on aspects of what they were losing and play as close as possible (and in some game, even over) the expected level. Not every coach can do that, but it is further evidence of how Beilein has built not only a good by a deep and multi-faceted team that can become what it needs to become to win games. That's definitely Top 5-10 material to me.
March 20th, 2014 at 11:36 AM ^
SUBS. We had them. It was crazy.
March 20th, 2014 at 11:41 AM ^
That summary fails to mention McGary. I asked this after we won the BiG, but can anyone remember a team losing their top 3 players from a team that didn't win their conference, turning around and winning it the next year? Extraordinary. Not in our lifetimes will we ever see a Michigan team so far exceed expectations because even though some of our future teams may win championships, few if any will ever have their expectations dashed as much as ours were when McGary went down.
March 20th, 2014 at 11:55 AM ^
No Izzo or Pitino...because fuck those guys
March 20th, 2014 at 12:00 PM ^
...Coach Beilein, Bennett, or Marshall. Surely Marshall will win, though. It doesn't take much thought to vote for the guy with the undefeated team - and that's not to say that he shouldn't win.
March 20th, 2014 at 12:08 PM ^
2004 - St. Joe's made it through the regular season undefeated but lost in their tournament, but coach was still Coach of the Year
1990-91 - UNLV undefeated entering the tournament but their coach was NOT selected as Coach of the Year.
Marshall may win it, but I hope it's not just b/c he's undefeated. As great as that is, it's not a good enough argument for me.
March 20th, 2014 at 12:18 PM ^
This feels like either Marshall's or Bennett's award to lose, but hopefully Beilein gets his proper due for a great season with a fair bit of adversity to start.
March 20th, 2014 at 12:35 PM ^
Here's SMU's final ranking at Massey through the years. "Historically crap program" doesn't quite describe it.
- 2004: 128
- 2005: 159
- 2006: 252
- 2007: 221
- 2008: 383
- 2009: 296
- 2010: 196
- 2011: 136
- 2012: 252
- 2013: 222
- 2014: 50
To give an idea of how bad that is, here's Nebraska for comparison:
- 2004: 62
- 2005: 96
- 2006: 87
- 2007: 106
- 2008: 44
- 2009: 78
- 2010: 92
- 2011: 88
- 2012: 146
- 2013: 82
- 2014: 51
Before this year, SMU's best season was about like Nebraska's worst. SMU's worst season was like a mediocre D2 team.
March 20th, 2014 at 12:45 PM ^
-Whiney closet Nebraska fans on MGoBlog
March 20th, 2014 at 12:48 PM ^
I'd guess the guy who won all his regular season games gets the nod. Strength of schedule, conference, blah, blah -- hard to do better than winning all your games.
500exp points for the nomination. I say use it on recruiting; his game management is already up there.