Big 12 Basketball: Bruce Weber, Scott Drew lead 2019 Coach of the Year race

Big 12 Basketball has a lot of quality coaches who have led their team to impressive seasons. Here are the five candidates for Big 12 Coach of the Year.

We have had another action-packed Big 12 basketball season. Some of the coaches mentioned are the ones typically competing for the Coach of the Year award but we also have some other coaches who have been very impressive in leading their teams to a lot of success.

This league may have the best group of coaches of any conference in the country. They may not have all the elite coaches that the ACC does in Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Tony Bennett, among others but top to bottom they have good coaches at every school.

Some of the coaches not mentioned as candidates have had a lot of success in their careers, most notably Bob Huggins and Lon Kruger. Huggins has made two Final Four’s in his coaching career first with Cincinnati in 1992 and then at West Virginia in 2010. This has been a down year for the Mountaineers but they have a lot of young talent so expect them to bounce back in a big way next season.

Kruger has had a lot of success in his coaching career as he is one of only two coaches to lead five different programs to the NCAA Tournament. He has also led two programs to the Final Four, Florida in 1994, and Oklahoma in 2016. His Oklahoma teams have been close to knocking off Kansas at the top of the conference but they have come up just short finishing 12-6 multiple times.

The other three coaches haven’t necessarily done a bad job this season but their teams haven’t had the amount of success to be considered for this award. Mike Boynton has struggled at Oklahoma State this season but they’ve had to deal with a lot of roster turmoil and he’s building a culture so expect the Cowboys to start heading in the right direction.

Shaka Smart came to Texas to lead the Longhorns to excellence as they had expectations of knocking off Kansas in the Big 12. He hasn’t had the success they were hoping for but they are on their way to becoming a tournament team for the 3rd time in his four seasons there.

Jamie Dixon is the final coach not considered a candidate for Big 12 Coach of the Year. He had a lot of success at Pittsburgh before coming to TCU. In his first season, they won the NIT postseason tournament and then made the NCAA Tournament last season. It has been an up and down season but they look to be on their way to another NCAA Tournament appearance.

All of these coaches have done a good job at their school but the following five have done remarkable jobs this season. Each program has dealt with a lot drama but the coaches have kept their teams focused and playing at a high level. Some of these coaches chances of winning the award of slim but they’ve all done a fantastic job this season and deserve to be recognized.