From the sidelines
By Marty Gordon
When the Atlantic Coast Conference announced women’s basketball honorees, it missed the boat on coach of the year. Boston College’s Joanna Bernabei-McNamee was voted ACC Coach of the Year. But what about Virginia Tech’s Kenny Brooks?
Bernabei-McNamee led Boston College to a program-record 11 conference wins. The Eagles’ sixth seeding in this week’s ACC Tournament is the best since BC joined the conference for the 2005-06 season.
BC set a program record with five conference road wins and won five consecutive ACC games for the first time since 2005-06. The Eagles’ regular-season slate was highlighted by an upset win at No. 14 Florida State, which was the program’s first win over a ranked team since 2015.
Not taking anything away from Bernabei-McNamee and the outstanding season her team completed this year. But those voting should have looked a little closer to Blacksburg as Brooks has done a tremendous job and deserved this year’s ACC honor.
The Hokies’ season has been way better than what everyone predicted. Let’s take a look back at Brooks on the sidelines. In three seasons leading up to this year, he had 86 wins but only a 27-39 ACC record.
This year, all of that has changed with 11 conference wins and a 21-7 mark overall. The Hokies are a team to contend with and should receive an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
Kenny Brooks is our 2019-2020 ACC coach of the year.