Louisiana Tech head coach Teresa Weatherspoon was named the 2011 Russell Athletic/Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Region 7 Coach of the Year Monday.
Weatherspoon was one of seven coaches nationwide that earned their respective region's coach of the year award while Stanford head coach Tara VanDeveer earned the national award.
Weatherspoon led Tech to a 24-8 record, the WAC regular-season title and a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Along the way, Tech played the 24th toughest non-conference schedule in the country (collegerpi.com) and posted impressive victories over Sweet 16 participant Georgia, Tulane, Fresno State (twice) and Nevada (twice) - all teams that won 20 or more games and that reached postseason.
All eight of Tech's losses came to teams that won at least 19 games and seven of eight came to postseason teams (excluding only LSU who passed on a WNIT berth).
The Lady Techsters also posted a couple of milestone wins, including the program's 400th win at the Thomas Assembly Center Feb. 17 against Hawai'i and the program's 1000th victory against Nevada on March 11 in Las Vegas. Tech joined Tennessee as the only two women's basketball programs to ever record 1,000 wins.
Weatherspoon, who was named the Maggie Dixon Rookie Coach of the Year last season, has recorded an overall mark of 58-18 since taking over the reigns of the program in February of 2009.
In addition to Weatherspoon, other region coach of the year recipients were Connecticut's Geno Auriemma (Region 1), Miami's Katie Meier (Region 2), Tennessee's Pat Summitt (Region 3), Houston's Todd Buchanan (Region 4), Baylor's Kim Mulkey (Region 5) and Wisconsin-Green Bay's Matthew Bollant (Region 6).