David Woods

david.woods@indystar.com

Butler’s Chris Holtmann has been honored by CollegeInsider.com with the John McLendon Award as college basketball’s coach of the year.

Holtmann, 45, a native of Nicholasville, Ky., and a Taylor University graduate, was previously chosen Big East Coach of the Year.

The McLendon Award encompasses NCAA Divisions I, II and III, NAIA and junior colleges.

“Chris Holtmann is one of the five best coaches in all of college basketball,” CollegeInsider.com’s Angela Lento said in a news release. “He isn’t a household name, but he should be. His name should come up more in conversations about great X and O guys.”

Butler has had one other national coach of the year, Todd Lickliter, honored by the National Association of Basketball Coaches in 2008.

Butler, picked for sixth in the Big East, finished second in a 25-9 season and reached the NCAA tournament's Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 2011. Holtmann is 3-0 in NCAA tournament first-round games.

The McLendon Award is chosen by a 30-member committee of five Division I coaches, five retired coaches, 10 athletic directors and/or conference administrators, five members of the national media and five CollegeInsider.com staffers.

The award is named for a pioneering coach who is in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

John McLendon won three consecutive NAIA titles at Tennessee State (1957, ’58, ’59) and in 1962 became the first African-American coach in the pros with the American Basketball League’s Cleveland Pipers. He became the first African-American coach of a predominantly white university at Cleveland State in 1966 and was hired to coach the ABA’s Denver Rockets in 1969. McLendon’s lifetime record was 523-165 (.760).

Call IndyStar reporter David Woods at (317) 444-6195. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.