Men’s basketball: Dixon named Coach of the Year

Despite the Panthers’ early exit from the NCAA Tournament, Pitt men’s basketball head coach… Despite the Panthers’ early exit from the NCAA Tournament, Pitt men’s basketball head coach Jamie Dixon earned one of college basketball’s top honors when he was named Sporting News Magazine’s Coach of the Year on Tuesday.

Dixon is the second coach in the history of Pitt’s program to win the Coach of the Year award from Sporting News. The other was Ben Howland, who merited the distinction in the 2001-02 season.

Dixon, who led the Panthers to a 28-6 record on the year and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, is a four-time National Coach of the Year honoree. This season, the Panthers set a new program best with a 15-3 league record on their way to an outright Big East regular season championship.

Additionally, in all eight seasons as head coach for the Panthers, Dixon has amassed at least 20 wins and 10 Big East victories every year.

Earlier in the year, with a 66-50 win over USF on March 2, Dixon also became the winningest coach in NCAA Division I history through eight seasons. He now has 216 victories in his first eight seasons as a head coach, beating out Mark Few of Gonzaga and Roy Williams of Kansas, both who had 213 wins in eight seasons.

As the 2010-11 season concluded, Dixon was also the coach with the highest win percentage in Big East history, at .708.

Following Dixon on that list are a few legendary coaches such as Georgetown’s John Thompson (.653), Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim (.643), Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun (.641) and St. John’s Lou Carnesecca (.635).