Friday, March 12, 2010

            BOSTON (March 12, 2010) -- The 15 finalists for the 2010 Skip Prosser Award were announced on Wednesday, and ETSU men's basketball coach Murry Bartow is among that group.

As of Thursday, all of the finalists have led their respective teams to 18 or more victories this season and five of them - Bartow, Oakland's Greg Kampe, Murray State's Billy Kennedy, Butler's Brad Stevens and Wofford's Mike Young - have secured automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament by virtue of winning their conference tournaments.

            In his seven seasons at ETSU, Bartow has been highly successful, leading the Bucs to five conference championships, four postseason tournaments (three NCAAs and one NIT), and four 20-win seasons. In fact, he is the only ETSU head coach to ever lead the Bucs to three NCAA Tournaments.

The Skip Prosser Award was established last year to honor recipients who not only achieve success on the basketball court but who display moral integrity off of it as well.  Prosser posted a career record of 291-146 in 14 seasons as a head coach. During his time at Wake Forest, his teams averaged 21 wins per season while playing in arguably the nation's most difficult league, the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The Citadel's Ed Conroy was the winner of the 2009 award and Notre Dame's Mike Brey won the inaugural award in 2008.  This year's award will be presented on April 2 in Indianapolis.

2010 SKIP PROSSER AWARD FINALISTS

Murry Bartow               East Tennessee State

Bill Carmody               Northwestern

Jamie Dixon                Pittsburgh

Fran Dunphy                Temple

Greg Kampe               Oakland

Billy Kennedy              Murray State

Chris Mack                  Xavier

Bob Marlin                   Sam Houston State

Stew Morrill                  Utah State

Eric Reveno                 Portland

Dave Rose                   BYU

Kevin Stallings             Vanderbilt

Brad Stevens               Butler

Mike Young                  Wofford

Ted Woodward            Maine