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

Ivy League: Brian Earl (Cornell)

Cornell has appeared in just five NCAA Tournaments and none since a wild trip to the Sweet Sixteen in 2010. Could that change this year? Earl’s work with this program is deserving of this honor, and he’s been around some successful basketball over the years. This is year eight for him leading the Big Red, but he was part of plenty of winning as a player and assistant at Princeton; though now he’s marking his own path.

The Big Red sit 8-1 in league play in the Ivy League, tied atop the league standings with Yale, the only team that has beaten them to this point. The 19-4 record is an impressive step forward and this is by far Earl’s best work at Cornell. There’s not much else to say about this eight-team conference, though it’ll be interesting to see if Earl and company can finish atop the league standings for the first time in over a decade.

MAAC: Tom Pecora (Quinnipiac)

Every league has options for this award, though not too much thought should be required in the MAAC. After last season, Baker Dunleavy departed the program to return to Villanova, leaving the Bobcats to turn to Pecora, then just a special assistant. Pecora has more than a decade of head coaching experience, with stints at Hofstra and Fordham, but his work this year has been just as great.

Quinnipiac has never appeared in the NCAA Tournament but may be sniffing their first bid, currently sitting atop the league standings in the MAAC. Picked 5th in the conference, the Bobcats instead cling to a 1.5 game lead with a 19-6 record, including 11-3 against their league rivals. Two recent losses dulled an excellent start to league play, but Quinnipiac is still sitting very pretty in Pecora’s first year at the helm in an excellent all-around effort.