PHOENIX - CSU Bakersfield men's basketball head coach Rod Barnes has been named the Hugh Durham Mid-Major Coach of the Year by CollegeInsider.com.
“Rod Barnes has done a phenomenal job of building CSU Bakersfield into a perennial contender in the WAC,†CollegeInsider.com's Angela Lento said. “What he has done over the past two seasons is as good of two-year run as any mid-major program in college basketball.â€
Barnes was the 2017 WAC Don Haskins Coach of the Year for the second-straight season and was also a finalist for College Insider's Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year and Ben Jobe Minority Coach of the Year Awards.
In his sixth season with the Roadrunners, Barnes led CSUB to a program Division I record 25 wins while posting a 25-10 mark which included the program's first WAC regular-season title. After a loss in the WAC Tournament championship game, Barnes led CSUB on an improbable run through the NIT with road wins at California, Colorado State and UT Arlington as CSUB became the first team in NIT history to go from an eight seed to the semifinals at Madison Square Garden.
This is Barnes' third coach of the year award in the last two seasons and his first at the national level since joining the Roadrunners in 2011. Barnes won the Naismith National Coach of the Year award in 2001 while coaching at Ole Miss.
Barnes recorded his 100th win at CSUB this season and owns a 106-88 record at CSUB and a 291-276 all-time record as a head coach.
The Hugh Durham Award is presented annually to the nation's top mid-major coach. In eight seasons as head coach at Jacksonville University, Durham became the Dolphins' all-time winningest Division I coach (106 wins), making him the only coach in NCAA history to be the winningest coach (percentage or wins) at three different Division I schools.