Butler's Brad Stevens earns mid-season honors

March 2, 2009

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

Brad Stevens (Butler), who received mid-season Durham Award honors, and Randy Bennett (St. Mary’s) headline the list. Both were also finalists following the 2007-08 season.

The remaining eight, who are all finalists for the award for the first time, include Duggar Baucom (VMI), Todd Bozeman (Morgan State), Ed Conroy (The Citadel), Brad Greenberg (Radford), Ben Jacobson (Northern Iowa), Saul Phillips (North Dakota State), J.P. Piper (Nicholls State) and Randy Rahe (Weber State).

“It’s an impressive list of finalists,” says Hugh Durham who is the chairman of the award committee. “With so many coaches doing outstanding jobs it’s difficult to select just ten finalists.”

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

In 2005 the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Coach of the Year award was renamed in honor of Hugh Durham who retired at the end of the 2004-05 season. Durham is one of just twelve coaches to have led two different programs to the NCAA Final Four (Florida State, 1972 & Georgia, 1983). He is the only coach to lead both teams to their only Final Four appearance.

The previous winners of the award are Keno Davis (Drake) 2008, Gregg Marshall (Winthrop) 2007, Pat Flannery (Bucknell) 2006 and Bob Thomason (Pacific) 2005.

2008 HUGH DURHAM AWARD FINALISTS