The Missouri Athletic Club honors the best of college basketball through exclusive interviews at the USBWA College Basketball Awards. Podcast guests include Jabari Smith (Wayman Tisdale Award Winner), Aliyah Boston (Ann Meyers Drysdale Award Winner), Aneesah Morrow (Tamika Catchings Award Winner), Tommy Lloyd (Henry Ida Award Winner), Barry Hinson (featured guest) and Aaron Pawlitz (College Basketball Awards Banquet MAC Chairman).
The U.S. Basketball Writers Association College Basketball Awards made a great return to its home, the Missouri Athletic Club, on April 11. Following a two-year pause on the event due to COVID, a sold-out crowd filled the Missouri Room to honor the best in college basketball for the 2021-22 season. The event featured a star-studded lineup of award winners that attracted the media spotlight.
Long-time coach and a favorite with MAC audiences, Barry Hinson kicked the banquet off with his mix of comedy and folksy stories. The male and female freshmen of the year were each honored. Auburn’s Jabari Smith, who has drawn comparisons to NBA star Kevin Durant, received the Wayman Tisdale Award. DePaul “Diaper Dandy” Aneesah Morrow averaged 21.9 points and 13.8 rebounds per game and won the Tamika Catchings Trophy awarded to the top women’s freshman in college basketball.
University of Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd was awarded the 2022 Henry Iba Coach of the Year winner, the same award his old boss Mark Few won in 2017. Lloyd greatly exceeded expectations in his first season as a head coach as he guided the Wildcats to a 33-4 record, swept the Pac-12 regular-season and postseason titles and led his team to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Dawn Staley was awarded the 2022 USBWA Female Basketball Coach of the Year for the second time, after winning her first in 2020. This year, Staley led South Carolina to the national championship.
Staley’s star player, Aliyah Boston won the Ann Meyers Drysdale Player of the Year Award presented to the top player in women’s college basketball. Kentucky junior forward Oscar Tshiebwe won the Oscar Robertson Trophy after averaging double-double on the season. Kentucky coach John Calipari was on-hand to talk about his star player during the banquet.
Tom Ackerman, Sports Director at KMOX and a proud MAC Member, did a masterful job as emcee. He concluded the banquet program by doing a Q&A with Porter Moser, the 2022 recipient of the USBWA’s “Good Guy” Award. The University of Oklahoma head coach who just completed his first season with the Sooners, shared reflections of his historic tenure at Loyola of Chicago, as well as the time he lived at the MAC for several months when he was first hired as an assistant coach at SLU.
The strong support of the Membership and the sponsors made the event possible and the MAC looks forward to continuing to grow this event into another great annual sports banquet on the Club’s social calendar.
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