NCAA Basketball: Picking each league’s Coach of the Year for 2023-24 season

ACC: Steve Forbes (Wake Forest)

In what’s certainly a down year for the ACC, there’s no really apparent answer to this question off the bat. Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia sit atop the league standings but that was certainly expected, even if Hubert Davis and Tony Bennett have juggled certain challenges in recent years. The focus instead turns to that Wake Forest team led by Steve Forbes, who just might have his first trip to the Big Dance with the Demon Deacons.

Wake Forest was picked 6th in the ACC and have impressed at times this year, sitting in 4th place with a 9-6 mark at the moment. They blew out Virginia back in January, have a few other nice wins, and have put themselves in position for a long-awaited return to the NCAA Tournament. It’s the potential culmination of the four years Forbes has put in at Winston-Salem, and we’ll see in the coming weeks if it pays off.

Big 12: Mark Pope (BYU)

The nation’s best basketball conference continues to produce winning teams from unexpected places. The Big 12 added four new programs in the offseason, and three of them were picked near the bottom of the league standings. While much of the focus might be on first-year head coach Grant McCasland at Texas Tech, the job that Pope has done in exceeding expectations has been outstanding.

BYU was picked to finish 13th in the Big 12 this season; yes that’s second from last place and a complete afterthought in the league. Instead, the Cougars got off to a hot start this season. They’ve picked up wins over San Diego State, Iowa State, and Baylor, sit 19-7, and are right in the thick in the conference race. They’ll also be back in the NCAA Tournament for just the second time in nine years; and all of this after going 7-9 in the WCC last year.