ECK NAMED NJCAA COACH OF THE YEAR

HCC Sports Information
Monday, April 17, 2017

Leading the Hutchinson Community College men's basketball team to its first national championship in 23 years, head coach Steve Eck was named the NJCAA Spalding Division I Men's Basketball Coach of the Year on Monday.

Eck guided the 2016-17 Blue Dragons to the 2017 NJCAA men's basketball national championship on March 26 after the Blue Dragons defeated Eastern Florida State 84-58 in front of a jam-packed Sports Arena.

The national championship was a culmination of a 35-2 season, in which the Blue Dragons won its second-straight Jayhawk Conference championship.

Completing his eighth season at Hutchinson, Eck is 231-46 with the Blue Dragons. That tenure includes 67-7 over the past two seasons, both of which reached the NJCAA Tournament championship game. Eck is now No. 2 in all-time coaching victories at Hutchinson.

In 2016, the Blue Dragons lost to Salt Lake in the national championship game. He is 553-96 in 19 seasons as a head coach at Butler, Redlands, Cowley and Hutchinson.

Eck has guided the Blue Dragons to the national tournament four times – 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 – two Region VI Tournament championships and two Jayhawk Conference championships.

With Samajae Haynes-Jones finishing his career in ninth place on the career scoring list, Eck's players now own four spots in the Top 10 – Kadeem Allen, 3rd; Bashir Ahmed, 6th; Haynes-Jones, 9th; and Joe Mitchell 10th – and seven player in the Blue Dragon Top 25 career scorers.

Eck now has an NJCAA Division II national championship and Division I national runner-up with Redlands and a national runner-up and national championship with the Blue Dragons.