Matt McMahon named NABC District 19 Coach of the Year

MurraySports

From GoRacers.com...

Murray State head men's basketball coach Matt McMahon has been named the National Basketball Coaches Association District 19 Coach of the Year.

McMahon is the seventh MSU coach to win the NABC award since Ron Greene in 1980. Other Racer coaches include: Steve Newton (1988), Mark Gottfried (1997), Tevester Anderson (1999), Billy Kennedy (2010) and Steve Prohm (2012).

In his third season with the Racers, McMahon led the team to a 26-6 overall record and to the program’s 25th Ohio Valley Conference regular season championship. In Evansville, the Racers won the OVC Tournament with thrilling wins over Jacksonville State and Belmont to advance to the NCAA Tournament for the 16th time in school history.

The Racers gained momentum at the end of the season by winning 13 games in a row after mid-January. MSU’s special season was the ninth in 93 seasons of Racer Basketball that the team won 25 or more games. Coach McMahon is the eighth-straight MSU coach to take the Racers to the NCAA Tournament. It all started with Coach Steve Newton who took the Racers to the Big Dance in 1988, 1990 and 1991 and continued with Scott Edgar in 1992 and 1995. Mark Gottfried had the Racers in the NCAA’s in 1997 and 1998, before Tevester Anderson got them there in 1999 and 2002. Mick Cronin took the Racers twice in 2004 and 2006, before Billy Kennedy did it in 2010. Steve Prohm took the Racers in 2012

Murray State’s “Big 3” players of Jonathan Stark, Terrell Miller, Jr., and Ja Morant combined with a solid supporting cast to push the Racers to No. 26 in the nation for effective field goal percentage (KenPom.com) at .522 and No. 21 in the nation in defensive EFG% at .469. In NCAA D-I statistics, the Racers held standing all season in the top-50 of nine stat categories.

Stark had the rare distinction of being the OVC Preseason MVP, OVC Player of the Year and OVC Tournament MVP as he led the league in scoring for a second-straight season. Miller was a two-time All-OVC choice and Morant made a splash in his freshman season by being named All-OVC. Stark and Miller leave MSU as one of the top combinations in the history of the program. Stark is the all-time two-year scorer at MSU with 1,408 points and Miller is fifth at 1,012. Additionally, Miller is one of only 21 players at Murray State to reach 1,000 points and 500 rebounds.

2018 NABC ALL-DISTRICT COACHES FOR NCAA DIVISION I

District 1 – John Becker, Vermont / Kevin Baggett, Rider

District 2 – Tony Bennett, Virginia

District 3 – Mike Jones, Radford

District 4 – Dan Hurley, Rhode Island

District 5 – Chris Mack, Xavier

District 6 – Travis DeCuire, Montana

District 7 – Chris Holtmann, Ohio State

District 8 – Bill Self, Kansas

District 9 – Mark Few, Gonzaga

District 10 – Bill Coen, Northeastern

District 11 – Steve Henson, UTSA

District 12 – Scott Nagy, Wright State

District 13 – Steve Donahue, Penn

District 14 – Nate Oats, Buffalo

District 15 – Jay Joyner, North Carolina A&T

District 16 – Porter Moser, Loyola Chicago

District 17 – Eric Musselman, Nevada

District 18 – Bashir Mason, Wagner

District 19 – Matt McMahon, Murray State

District 20 – Mike Hopkins, Washington

District 21 – Rick Barnes, Tennessee

District 22 – Wes Miller, UNCG

District 23 – Donte Jackson, Grambling

District 24 – Bob Marlin, Louisiana

District 25 – Kelvin Sampson, Houston

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