Cockeysville, MD - Today University of La Verne women's basketball head coach Jason Pruitt was named the Region 10 NCAA Division III Coach Of The Year by the D3Hoops.com. 

 

This award is the second coach of the year honor Coach Pruitt has received in less than a month. He was named the 2023 SCIAC Coach of the year at the completion of the Leopards historic 2022-2023 campaign.  

 

Under the guidance of Coach Pruitt and his staff, the Leopards finished the 2022-2023 season with a SCIAC Regular Season Conference Championship, the most wins in school history while also having the most single-season wins in conference History (24). Coach Pruitt and his team also had one of the longest winning streaks in the country, winning 18 games straight. The Leopards were a Top 25 nationally ranked team by the Women's' Basketball Coaching Association (WBCA) & D3 Hoops for multiple weeks.  In addition, Coach Pruitt and his Staff won the Coaching Staff of the Year award for the SCIAC.  The Leopards racked up more national numbers (Top 5 rebounds per game, Top 6 offensive rebounding per game, Top 22 rebound margin per game, Top 15 scoring offense, Top 15 winning percentage) while also having the #1 Offense + Defense in the conference with an average winning score margin 13+ points per game. His players were also selected with 2 First Team All-Conference (Marissa Howell & Chiara Brown) & 1 Second Team (Dejanee Gill) All-Conference awards.

 

Coach Pruitt praised his staff and his players for making this award possible. "I am so fortunate and appreciative to have had the opportunity to coach such a talented, experienced, and hard-working group of student-athletes at the University of La Verne.  Any honors or recognition I have received can be directly attributed to our coaching staff and the high-quality group of players we have in our program. This is a special team, and I will cherish the season we just experienced together for quite some time.  Our coaches and young women deserve all the credit for this award. They had a great regular season, posting a record of 24-3 with one loss coming to an NCAA Division I opponent, one conference game, and a final loss by one point in the conference championship game. 

 

I'm big on teaching life lessons, I'm a believer that sports help prepare our players for life. I've always believed the things we go through and the manner in which we go about taking care of our daily business will help prepare our players for life events. Whenever that day comes that I'm done coaching, this group will always be an extra-special group.  You want to see your team reach their potential and overachieve and do more than what they thought they'd do, and no question this group has done that. It's both satisfying and gratifying to have that success.  I'm happy to accept this award in honor or our team and my assistant coaches."