Mercer head coach Mark Slonaker was named the 2002-03 Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year by CollegeInsider.com Monday, March 10.
The 46-year old Slonaker, a native of Rahway, N.., led Mercer to a 23-6 record this year and the first regular season conference championship in school history as the Bears went 14-2 in the Atlantic Sun.
Mercer and Slonaker can also lay claim to the best single-season turnaround in NCAA history, going from 6-23 to 23-6. Mercer also cracked the CollegeInsider.com Mid Major Top 25 Poll for the first time ever.
One could easily argue that Slonaker has one of the toughest jobs in division I college basketball. In addition to very high academic standards, their home court has a capacity of just 500 people.
Despite the disadvantages, in six seasons the Mercer program has shown steady improvement with Slonaker at the helm, culminating this season with a school-record 23 wins (Mercer won 22 games in 1923-24 and 1984-85).
The Bears lost to UCF in the semifinals of the A-Sun Tournament and snapped a 12-game winning streak, which was the fourth best in America.
Mercer has a total enrollment of more than 7,300 and is widely regarded as the “Ivy League of the South.”
Slonaker is the first recipient of the Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year, which was recently renamed to honor the retired Mount St. Mary’s coach. Phelan, who coached for 49 seasons, is currently third on the all-time win list with 830.
Previous winners of the CollegeInsider.com National Coach of the Year include Rob Evans (Mississippi), Bob Huggins (Cincinnati), Mike Krzyzewski (Duke), Bo Ryan (Wisconsin) and Greg Kampe (Oakland).
The four other finalists were Lute Olson (Arizona), Skip Prosser (Wake Forest), Bo Ryan (Wisconsin) and Tubby Smith (Kentucky).
