BATON ROUGE — LSU head men’s basketball coach Trent Johnson has been named one of the 12 finalists for the 2009 Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award announced Friday.
Johnson, in his first year as the LSU head coach, has taken the Tigers to the SEC regular season championship and enters Saturday’s regular season finale at Auburn with a 13-2 league record and 25-5 overall mark.
“It’s a great group of finalists,” said Mark Prosser, son of the late Skip Prosser and chairman of the award selection committee. “It was difficult to narrow the list down to 12 finalists. There were so many outstanding coaches.”
The twelve finalists were selected from a group of semi-finalists compiled by the selection panel. The finalists include Jim Calhoun (Connecticut), Jeff Capel (Oklahoma), Ed Conroy (The Citadel), Ed DeChellis (Penn State), Jamie Dixon (Pittsburgh), Dino Gaudio (Wake Forest), Tom Izzo (Michigan State), Trent Johnson (LSU), Lon Kruger (UNLV), Billy Lange (Navy), Stew Morrill (Utah State), Bruce Weber (Illinois).
The Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award is given annually to a division I head coach who best represent the high standards of the coaching profession. Winning with integrity. The award, which is named in memory of former Wake Forest head coach Skip Prosser who passed away suddenly on July 26, 2007, was established by CollegeInsider.com and the Prosser family.
The 2009 recipient will be announced at the Final Four in Detroit.