3 Biggest Snubs From Naismith Coach of the Year Semifinalists

The Naismith Coach of the Year pays honors the best coach in college basketball in a given season. The shortlist of 10 semifinalists has officially been released, and some surprising names are mixed in, along with some of the big guns we expected to be here.

These three snubs have every reason to be irate with this list, as their tremendous job of coaching has gone largely unrecognized.

3. Brad Underwood

Underwood has his Fighting Illini back to prominence in the Big Ten, as he has helped mold Ayo Dosunmu into both a tremendous point guard for Illinois and a future NBA draft pick. Illinois has a better conference record than Pat Chambers' Penn State, but Underwood has been denied the adulation his season should have brought him.

2. Kevin Willard

Willard has done a tremendous job of developing Myles Powell into an elite scorer while leading the Pirates to a Top 10 ranking, but the more impressive part of his season has been the fact that he keeps winning in a deep Big East despite the fact that Powell and Sandro Mamukelashvili have both struggled to stay healthy, Against all the odds, Willard has the Pirates ranked No. 8 in the country. Willard's miracle working apparently wasn't enough to unseat the likes of BYU's Mark Pope or Creighton's Greg McDermott.

1. Bill Self

Imagine, if you will, a world where the head coach of the No. 1 team in all of college basketball is not recognized as one of the 10 best coaches in the sport. Unfortunately, we live in that very world right now. While Self has more advantages at his disposal than all of the other ten coaches by virtue of being the head coach at Kansas, that doesn't change the fact that he has the Jayhawks at the top of the heap in a year that has been full of upsets. Self has a resume worthy of a Coach of the Year honor, but he can't even crack this Top 10.