Drew, Waters Share NABC District 12 Coach of Year Honors

INDIANAPOLIS -- Valparaiso men's basketball head coach Homer Drew, along with Cleveland State head coach Gary Waters have been named the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) 2011 Division I District 12 Co-Coaches of the Year in a vote of their peers, as announced by the NABC.

Waters led Cleveland State to a 27-9 record and a share of the school's first Horizon League regular season championship.  Collecting his 100th career win with CSU, Waters took the program to its second NIT berth in the last four years.  The Vikings picked up votes in both the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll and the Associated Press Poll throughout the season.  He helped mentor League Player of the Year Norris Cole, who paced the conference in scoring and steals while ranking among the leaders in both assists and rebounding.

Drew guided the Crusaders to 23 victories, their 11th 20-win campaign in the last 18 seasons, including a program-best 12 wins in Horizon League play, just one win back of the league title. He led Valpo to a pair of in-season tournament titles, the first time in program history the Crusaders have won multiple in-season trophies in the same year. Drew also guided Valpo back to the postseason for the tenth time in the past 16 seasons, as the Crusaders hosted a national postseason tournament game for the first time in program history.

Along the way in 2010-2011, Drew led Valpo to six victories over teams that won or shared their conference's regular season championship and put the Crusaders in a position to receive votes in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll four straight weeks, the first time in nine years that Valpo had received votes for the national top-25 rankings. With the team's 23 wins this season, Drew now owns a school-record 371 victories at the helm of the Crusaders and currently sits seventh among active Division I head coaches with 640 career wins.