The National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) named Ben McCollum of Northwest Missouri State University as the 2021 Division II Coach of the Year. This is the fourth time in the last five years that McCollum has earned the award with three NCAA Division II championships during that period. The Bearcats topped West Texas A&M 80-54 in the NCAA Division II national championship game on Saturday in Evansville, Ind., finishing the season with a 28-2 won-lost record.
Northwest Missouri also won NCAA titles in 2016-17 and 2018-19 and were 31-1 last season before pandemic ended play. Over the last three seasons, McCollum’s teams have a 97-3 and 159-8 mark over the last five seasons.
McCollum surpassed Cal State Bakersfield’s Pat Douglass for the most NABC Division II Coach of the Year awards with four. Douglass captured his awards in 1993, 1994 and 1997. McCollum has been the NABC Coach of the Year in 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2021.
