Earns program's fifth Coach of the Year since 1980 after guiding Skyhawks to second place finish in inaugural NCAA Division I season
NEC Announces Postseason Men's Basketball Awards
EASTON, Mass. (February 28, 2023) – Stonehill College head coach Chris Kraus, Class of 2006, has been named voted as the recipient of the Northeast Conference's Jim Phelan Coach of the Year Award by the Conference's nine head coaches the league announced today.
Kraus earns Jim Phelan Coach of the Year honors in Stonehill's first year as a member of the NEC, having started its four-year transition period to NCAA Division I in July. Kraus earns the first Coach of the Year recognition of his career and is the fifth Stonehill head coach to collect Coach of the Year accolades since the program's inaugural Northeast-10 Conference season in 1980-81. He joins Tom Folliard (1980-81 & 1981-82), Ray Pepin (1986-87 & 1991-92), David DeCiantis (1997-98) and David McLaughlin (2005-06 & 2009-10) who combined to earn seven NE10 Coach of the Year accolades with his NEC Coach of the Year award.
Kraus guided a Stonehill team picked ninth in the NEC's preseason coaches poll to a second-place finish in the final regular season standings with a 10-6 mark in Conference play as part of an overall record of 14-17. The Skyhawks were in contention for at least a share of the NEC's regular season championship entering the final weekend of the Conference schedule during its first year of transition to the NCAA Division I level. Stonehill posted a 9-6 record after the turn of the New Year, including 9-5 in NEC play, winning its last four home games as part of a 6-2 mark in NEC play at Merkert Gymnasium.
Kraus is Stonehill's fifth Coach of the Year recipient since 1980 earning the recognition for the first time in the Skyhawks inaugural NCAA Division I and NEC season (PHOTO BY Bob Blanchard) |
Kraus saw three of his student-athletes earn All-NEC honors in the program's first Division I season with fifth-year Andrew Sims earning first team honors, classmate Isaiah Burnett earning second team accolades and postgrad Max Zegarowski being named to the third team. It's just the third time since 1980 that Stonehill has had three All-Conference selections, and the first since its Division II Elite Eight season of 2015-16, marking the third-straight year the Skyhawks have had multiple All-Conference picks under Kraus. The Skyhawks were named a Division I "Team of the Week" by T3 Bracketology on February 7.
Stonehill finished the regular season as the NEC's leading free-throw shooting team, converting at 75.8-percent, while ranking second in three-point percentage (.353) and three-point field goals per game (7.7), third in field goal percentage (.441), fourth in scoring offense (67.0 ppg) and scoring defense (69.6 ppg), ranking second in field goal percentage defense (.427).
Kraus, the first alum to guide the Stonehill men's basketball program, has led his alma mater to a 144-116 (.554) record over his ten years as head coach. The only tie to Stonehill's three NCAA Division II East Region Championships as a student-athlete (2006), assistant coach (2012) and head coach (2016), he has led the Skyhawks to three NCAA Tournament bids at the Division II level. The first Canadian-born coach to take the helm of an NCAA men's basketball program is the lone Canadian head coach at the Division I level, Kraus has been associated with the Stonehill men's basketball program for 464 games over a combined 17 years as a student-athlete, assistant coach and head coach.
Jim Phelan is the late men's basketball coach at Mount Saint Mary's University for the entirety of his 49-year coaching career. The National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame inductee and 1962 National Coach of the Year led Mount Saint Mary's to 830 wins and 18 NCAA Tournament bids, winning the NCAA Championship in 1962, with two National Championship game appearances overall.
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