The Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association announced their 2009-2010 coaching awards this week. The awards are voted on by the WBCA Executive Board and presented to the honorees at the 2010 Hall of Fame Banquet on October 2nd.
In the high school ranks, two coaches navigated their teams to not only undefeated championship seasons, but undefeated 29 win championship seasons. In addition Bob Haffele (8) and Jeff Pustina (7) hold the most state championships of any coach for the boys and girls ranks respectively.
Of course the 29-0 record included a conference championship and a state title for Jeff Pustina’s Cuba City squad. They took care of Oostburg in the D3 girls championship game 53-40 and averaged a staggering 28.3 margin of victory on the year. Since 2004 he has coached the Cubans to a 156-3 record.
Bob Haffele’s Randolph squad took advantage of the extra two games and a smaller conference to scheduled five non-conference games against Division 1 opponents and two other non-conference games against perennial powers Plymouth and Dominican. To not only grab a state title but to get through that schedule without a notch in the loss column is an impressive feat.
Bo Ryan’s UW Badger team was picked as low as 9th by some college basketball pundits. However, proving the critics wrong the Badgers finished fourth in the conference, despite losing their leading scorer Jon Leuer for 9 games. Ryan was recognized as the Men's D1/D2 Coach of the Year.
Matt Bollant continued his success at UW-Green Bay as he led the Phoenix to a third consecutive 25+ win season and another Horizon League title. The also made some waves in the NCAA tournament, upsetting fifth seeded Virgina in the first round. Bollant was tabbed as the Women's D1/D2 Coach of the Year.
It is no surprise that the national coach of the year was also selected by his Wisconsin peers as the Men's D3 Coach of the Year. Bob Semling’s UW-Stevens Point team won the school's third national title with a 78-73 victory over Williams College.
Making it a clean sweep for Point, Shirley Egner took home the honor for D3 Women. Her Pointers finished the season 24-7 and made a run to the sectional finals of the NCAA tournament. Along the way they upset 3rd-ranked Illinois Wesleyan.
Rabas, in his 20th year of coaching, took over at UW-Fox Valley after five years as an assistant coach for Lawrence. In his first year, the Cyclones went 22-6 and he was named the Eastern Division Coach of the Year.
2009-2010 WBCA Coaching Awards
Boys High School Coach of the Year – Bob Haffele, Randolph
Girls High School Coach of the Year – Jeff Pustina, Cuba City
Men’s D1/D2 Coach of the Year – Bo Ryan, Wisconsin
Women’s D1/D2 Coach of the Year – Matt Bollant, UW-Green Bay
Men’s D3 Coach of the Year – Bob Semling, UW-Stevens Point
Women’s D3 Coach of the Year – Shirley Egner, UW-Stevens Point
Junior College Coach of the Year – Lee Rabas, UW-Fox Valley
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