The Hugh Durham National Coach of the Year Award (formerly called the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Coach of the Year Award) is an award given annually to the most outstanding mid-major men's college basketball head coach in NCAA Division I competition. The award was established in 2005 and was renamed for head coach Hugh Durham, who coached at Florida State, Georgia and Jacksonville. He led those teams to a combined 15 national postseason tournaments, including a national runner-up season with Florida State in 1972 and a Final Four appearance with Georgia in 1983.
Selection The Hugh Durham Award is voted on by 10-member panel consisting of former and current head coaches along with two senior staff members from Collegeinsider.com. The award is presented at the Final Four to the top mid-major men's basketball coach.
Definitions of the term "mid-major" in the context of college basketball vary widely. For purposes of its "mid-major" awards and honors—the Durham Award for coaches and the Lou Henson Award and Lou Henson All-America Team for players—Collegeinsider.com has established its own definition of the term, which includes the following conferences, as well as any basketball independents.
America East Conference Atlantic Sun Conference Big Sky Conference Big South Conference Big West Conference Coastal Athletic Association Conference USA Horizon League Independents Ivy League Metro Conference Mid-American Conference
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Missouri Valley Conference Northeast Conference Ohio Valley Conference Patriot League Southern Conference Southland Conference Southwestern Athletic Conference Summit League Sun Belt Conference West Coast Conference Western Athletic Conference
Of these conferences, the only ones that sponsor Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) football are Conference USA, Mid-American, and Sun Belt. All other FBS conferences, as well as the Atlantic 10 Conference (which has not sponsored football at all since 2006), have been excluded from the Collegeinsider.com list of "mid-majors" throughout the award's history. Following major conference realignment that peaked in 2013, the Western Athletic Conference, which dropped football after the 2012 season, was added to the eligible list, while both offshoots of the original Big East Conference (the FBS American Athletic Conference and the new non-football Big East) were excluded from eligibility.
Key Coach (X) Denotes the number of times the coach has been awarded the Hugh Durham Award at that point W, L, W % Total wins, total losses, win percentage Finish National postseason tournament result
Winners
Season Coach School W L W % Finish Reference 2004–05 Pacific 27 4 2005–06 Bucknell 27 5 2006–07 Winthrop 29 5 2007–08 Drake 28 5 2008–09 Morgan State 23 12 2009–10 Wofford 26 9 2010–11 Belmont 30 5 2011–12 USC Upstate 21 13 2012–13 Stephen F. Austin 27 5 2013–14 IPFW 25 11 2014–15 Sacramento State 21 12 2015–16 Yale 23 7 2016–17 Cal State Bakersfield 25 10 2017–18 UMBC 25 11 2018–19 Drake 24 10 2019–20 East Tennessee State 30 4 2020–21 Prairie View A&M 16 5 — 2021–22 Norfolk State 24 7 2022–23 Kennesaw State 26 9 2023–24 Indiana State 32 7 2024–25 Akron 28 7 2025–26 Navy 26 8 The NCAA men's tournament expanded to 68 teams starting in 2011, with the last four teams earning bids into the tournament set in competition with one another via "First Four" play-in games. The 'first round' then became more commonly referred to as 'Round of 64' for specificity. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the 2019–20 season to be canceled prior to any national postseason tournaments occurring.
References
External links