BOSTON, Massachusetts – Marist Women's Basketball Head Coach
Brian Giorgis has been awarded the 2020 Kay Yow National Coach of the Year, collegeinsider.com announced on Tuesday afternoon.
The Kay Yow Award is annually presented to the top head coach in Division I women's basketball who embodies not only a winning spirit but who also displays great character both on and off the court.
In the 2019-20 season, Giorgis guided the Red Foxes to a 26-4 record, including an 18-2 mark to clinch a share of Marist's 12
th regular season conference title in program history. It was the ninth time in program history, all under Coach Giorgis, that Marist reached 25 wins. With the season-opening triumph over Boston University on November 8, 2019, he is believed to have become the first coach in women's basketball history to have 400 wins at both the Division I level and high school level. His career record in Poughkeepsie stands at 425-160, including a 274-60 mark in MAAC play.
The Red Foxes concluded the abbreviated season on a 12-game winning streak, advancing to the semifinals of the 2020 Hercules Tires MAAC Men's and Women's Basketball Championships before the event was canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak. By the end of the regular season, Marist was ranked fifth in the collegeinsider.com Women's Mid-Major Top 25 poll. This year, Giorgis was the chairman of the Top 25 voting panel in 2019-20.
Marist concluded its season with an RPI of 54, best in the MAAC. The Red Foxes had lost just twice since December 15, 2019, and its only two losses in non-conference play came to Princeton (No. 9 in the RPI) and Central Michigan (No. 21 in the RPI). When deploying its primary starting lineup of Grace Vander Weide, Sarah Barcello, Rebekah Hand, Alana Gilmer, and Willow Duffell, Marist was undefeated in regulation, and totaled a 14-1 record.
Giorgis joins former Marist forward Maureen Magarity on the list of Kay Yow Award recipients. Magarity, now the head coach at the University of New Hampshire, was selected in 2017.
Yow was a coaching legend who led NC State to 737 wins during her 34 seasons at the school. She was wildly successful in every forum in which she coached, leading gold medal winners at the 1981 World University Games, the 1986 Goodwill Games, 1986 World Championship Games and the 1988 Olympic Games.