BOSTON, Massachusetts — One day after ACU men's basketball head coach
Joe Golding on Tuesday was announced as the Southland Conference Coach of the Year, he earned another accolade as he was named a finalist for the Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award.
Named after the late Skip Prosser, who died suddenly in 2007 while the head coach at Wake Forest, the award is presented annually to those who not only achieve success on the basketball court but who also display moral integrity off of it as well.
The recipient of the 2019 Skip Prosser award will be announced on April 5 at the College Insider Awards Event, in Minneapolis, site of the 2019 NCAA Division I basketball championship.
Golding this season led the Wildcats to a program-record 25 regular-season wins and 14 victories in conference play. ACU finished second in the Southland Conference at 14-4 and earned the league's second double-bye in this week's conference tournament. The Wildcats won't play until Friday night's semifinals against an as yet-to-be-determined opponent.
Golding was the first head coach from ACU to win the Southland Conference's Coach of the Year award since Dee Nutt was so honored in 1968 after leading the Wildcats to their last league before the 2013-14 season.
Prior to Golding's honor, the last ACU men's basketball coach to be voted a league coach of the year was Mike Martin when he earned the third of three straight Lone Star Conference Coach of the Year honors in 1987 after leading the Wildcats to the third of three straight league titles. He led a team that authored the fourth-largest improvement in wins in NCAA Division I basketball this season at plus-9.5 games (16-16 in 2017-18 to 25-6 so far in 2018-19).
Golding is one of 25 coaches from across the nation named as finalists for the award, including Jason Hooten, who led Sam Houston State to the Southland Conference regular-season championship. Others on the list of finalists include Texas State head coach Danny Kaspar, who coached at Stephen F. Austin when current ACU associate head coach
Brette Tanner was an assistant for the Lumberjacks.
Also on the list are Casey Alexander from Lipscomb, Duke All-Americans Tommy Amaker (Harvard) and Johnny Dawkins (Central Florida), former Texas Tech assistant Doc Sadler (current head coach at Southern Miss) and Fran Dunphy (Temple).
The complete list of finalists follows:
2019 SKIP PROSSER AWARD FINALISTS
Casey Alexander, Lipscomb
Tommy Amaker, Harvard
Rick Byrd, Belmont
Johnny Dawkins, UCF
Fran Dunphy, Temple
Steve Forbes, ETSU
Joe Golding, Abilene Christian
Earl Grant, Charleston
Jason Hooten, Sam Houston State
Michael Huger, Bowling Green
Donte' Jackson, Grambling
James Jones, Yale
Mike Jones, Radford
Robert Jones, Norfolk State
Jay Joyner, North Carolina A&T
Danny Kaspar, Texas State
Rob Krimmel, Saint Francis PA
Matt McMahon, Murray State
Joe Mihalich, Hofstra
Nate Oats, Buffalo
Ryan Odom, UMBC
Matt Painer, Purdue
Doc Sadler, Southern Miss
Bruce Weber, Kansas State
Mike Young, Wofford
