CBS Sports says it has given its national awards, and the Dayton Flyers get two of the biggest. Anthony Grant was named the CBS Sports Coach of the Year, and Obi Toppin the Player of the Year.
There is no question Toppin captured the heart of Dayton and the imagination of the basketball nation. He led the 29-2 Flyers with 20 points a game, and, as CBS Sports pointed out, he led the nation with 107 dunks. In writing about why Toppin is the player of the year, CBS Sports’ Matt Nylander says, “Toppin is not only a special player, but he also exhibits so much of what makes college basketball great in a modern and traditional sense.”
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Toppin is also a finalist for the prestigious John R. Wooden Award along with several other national honors.
For Coach Grant, who can be heard during the season with the coach’s show on the Home of the Flyers 1290 and 95.7 WHIO radio, he is being honored as a coach at the same school where he was a star player. The Flyers had built a regular expectation of making the NCAA tournament, but this year saw an undefeated Atlantic 10 season and a 20-game winning streak. Only 2 overtime losses kept the Flyers from being undefeated. “The Flyers reached their highest ranking in the AP Top 25 since 1956, which was a decade before Grant was born. Yes, the Dayton program was successful before Grant arrived. But he took it to another level this season,” wrote CBS Sports David Cobb.
Coach Grant is also a finalist for the Naismith College Coach of the Year and other prestigious awards.
You can read the full CBS Sports awards story here.