STAFF REPORT: Connie Yori receives coaching award nomination

Search “Connie Yori” in Wikipedia. You won’t find a personal page. Nebraska’s women’s basketball coach isn’t considered important enough to justify an article on the 3.2 million page and counting Web site. That might be changing soon.

With a 29-0 record and a top seed in the NCAA tournament all but assured, Yori could hardly have been surprised at her nomination for the 2010 Kay Yow Award. Still, her inclusion as a finalist for the award, which goes to the best women’s coach in Division I, is yet another piece of good news for both Yori and the program.

Other finalists for the award include Oklahoma’s Sherri Coale, who might be Nebraska’s final opponent in the Big 12 Tournament, as well as Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma, Tennessee’s Pat Summit and Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, whom Yori might face in the late stages of the NCAA Tournament.

This honor never would have seemed possible in 2002, when Yori went 8-20 in her first season at NU. But Yori has built the Huskers into a powerhouse with NU about to attend its third NCAA Tournament in four seasons. And at just 46 years old, she has plenty of time to build on her resume.

But she will be going up against several intimidating candidates for the award. Auriemma has his second 70-game win streak in five years going. Summit is the all-time winningest college basketball coach regardless of gender or division. VanDerveer has turned Stanford into a perennial top-5 program. Still, with Nebraska’s remarkable progress after a 15-16 record last season, she has to be considered the favorite. Turnarounds of 14-plus wins don’t happen often.

This is also some of the first national attention given to Yori and the Huskers. Despite being undefeated, Stanford ranks ahead of them in the AP and USA Today polls, and Nebraska is behind both Stanford and Tennessee in the RPI ratings. Connecticut, ranked first in every poll, is the heavy favorite to win the National Championship.

Yori’s Huskers face the win ner of the Kansas State/Texas Tech game in the Big 12 quarterfinals Friday in Kansas City. With a few wins in KC, coupled with a few more in the NCAA tournament, Yori might get the biggest coaching award in women’s college basketball. And, maybe even a Wikipedia page.

compiled by Sean Whalen

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1 comments

Anonymous

Wed Mar 10 2010 00:13

Just a heads up, the RPI is figured via computers so being positioned behind teams in that poll is not a sign of bias so much as A. a lesser win-loss record (obviously not the case here) or B. a lower strength of schedule ranking which is most likely the case. Also, while I do believe they should be at least second in the other polls, Stanford's one loss was to Uconn so it's not really that shocking that they are second. Other than that go Husker women!!!!

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