NCAA Basketball: Top 12 candidates for 2022-23 Coach of the Year
By Joey Loose
Pat Kelsey (Charleston)
Kelsey spent nine seasons as the head coach at Winthrop and was successful during his entire tenure, leading the Eagles to a pair of NCAA Tournaments and a ton of success in the Big South. He’s a rising name in coaching circles, and it was no surprise that the College of Charleston brought him to town just two seasons ago. What’s been the surprise is how his Cougars are responding in his second season at the helm.
Charleston lost a tough game at North Carolina in the opening week of the season but didn’t lose another game for more than two months. That long winning streak included victories over Virginia Tech and Kent State, who we might see in the NCAA Tournament. Any team that wins twenty games in a row is doing something right and the Cougars briefly had the nation’s longest winning streak. They’ve slipped up a few times in recent weeks, but still sit an impressive 22-3, with a 10-2 mark putting them in good shape in the CAA. Even more impressively, he got the Cougars ranked for the first time in two decades.
The amazing thing about Charleston is how this really is a team success. Dalton Bolon has exploded onto the scene as the leading scorer, but the other four starters are all averaging at least 10 points a game as well. Only Reyne Smith returned as a starter from last season, though Kelsey has clearly cultivated a winning lineup in his second year in town. While the Cougars have fallen off a bit with those two losses, you can bet that Kelsey has gathered national attention and will be on a number of shortlists for those bigger openings in a few months.