KANSAS CITY, Missouri – One week after leading the ACU men's basketball team to its first appearance in the NCAA Tournament, head coach
Joe Golding was on Thursday named the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) District 23 Coach of the year.
Earlier this month, Golding was selected as the Southland Conference Coach of the Year after leading ACU to a second-place finish in the regular season (14-4 league mark). The Wildcats, of course, went on to beat Southeastern Louisiana in the semifinals and New Orleans in the championship game to win the league championship and earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
ACU's season came to an end last Thursday night in the first round of the Midwest Regional when the 15th-seeded Wildcats lost to No. 2 seed Kentucky in Jacksonville, Florida.
"I'm honored to have been voted by my peers in the Southland Conference as the league's coach of the year and I'm honored to receive this latest award," Golding said. "We have great coaches in this league and in our district so to receive both of these is extremely humbling. These awards aren't about me; they're about our coaching staff and our players. We had an extremely satisfying journey together this season and I'm extremely proud of the hard work we all put in to a tremendous season."
Aside from those two coaching honors, Golding is also a national finalist as the Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award. In 2018-19, Golding led ACU to a program-record for wins in the regular season (25) and conference wins in a season (14), and the Wildcats tied the program record for wins in a season with 27, tying the mark set by the 1979-80 team.
Other coaches around the country honored as NABC district coaches of the year were Tony Bennett of Virginia (District 2), Casey Alexander of Lipscomb (District 3), Matt Painter of Purdue (District 7), Chris Beard of Texas Tech (District 8), Mark Few of Gonzaga (District 9), Mike Hopkins of Washington (District 20), Rick Barnes of Tennessee (District 21), and Kelvin Simpson of Houston (District 25).
