Tuesday, March 07, 2023

Third-year UNCW head coach Takayo Siddle has been named a finalist for two national awards.
 
Popular basketball website CollegeInsider.com named Siddle a finalist for the Ben Jobe Award and the Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award in college coaching.
 
The Ben Jobe Award, presented annually to the nation's top NCAA Division I minority coach, is named in honor of the former head coach of Southern University, a position he held for 12 seasons. He also served as head coach at Alabama A&M, Alabama State, Talladega, Tuskegee and South Carolina State.

Jobe's record at Southern was 209-141 and included four NCAA Tournament appearances. He coached the Jaguars to one NIT appearance, five SIAC championships, 11 SWAC titles and two NAIA championships. Perhaps Jobe's most noteworthy moment was leading No. 15 seed Southern to a 93-78 win over No. 2 Georgia Tech in the first round of the 1993 NCAA Tournament.
 
The Skip Prosser Man of the Year award honors head coaches who achieve success on the court and display moral integrity. Prosser passed away of an apparent heart attack on July 26, 2007, in his office at Wake Forest after returning from his morning jog.

In six years with the Demon Deacons, Prosser compiled a 126-68 record. He went 291-146 in 14 seasons as a head coach, including six years at Xavier and one year at Loyola (Md.).

At Wake Forest, Prosser's teams averaged 21 wins per season. Prosser won 100 games at an Atlantic Coast Conference school quicker than all but two coaches in the history of the league. He coached NBA stars Chris Paul and Josh Howard, led the Demon Deacons to the first No. 1 national ranking in school history and earned ACC Coach of the Year honors in 2003.

The recipients of the awards will be announced in March in Houston, site of the 2023 NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four.

-- Joe Browning