Commentary: West Coast Conference Coach of the Year voting flawed

After a season spent preaching the virtues of consistency, the West Coast Conference women’s basketball coaches threw it out the window last weekend.

At first glance, the selection of BYU’s Jeff Judkins as WCC Coach of the Year makes plenty of sense.

After all, Judkins just led the Cougars to the WCC regular-season title, edging perennial champion Gonzaga by one game.

And because Judkins persuaded four key players to return for an extra year, this might be best BYU team of all time. Going into the WCC Tournament, the Cougars are 25-2, ranked 17th in the country and are a serious threat to make a deep run in the NCAAs.

Certainly, Judkins deserves much of the credit for that success – much as Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier did the year before.

Playing in front of empty stands in the Kennel last year and burdened by the expectations of winning another WCC title, Fortier went 16-1 in the WCC and finished two games ahead of BYU.

So who won the coach of the year award? Judkins.

We’ll never know why.

Perhaps the other coaches were impressed by BYU’s late-season improvement. Maybe they were tired of voting for Fortier, who’d won the award the previous three years while leading the Zags to regular-season titles every time.

At every level, the process of awarding of postseason honors is subjective, political and secretive. In the WCC it’s handled by the coaches in a weekend Zoom meeting after the conclusion of the regular season.

For the coach of the year, conventional wisdom goes something like this: In the absence of a breakout season by another program, the trophy goes to the coach of the regular-season champion.

By that logic, the 2020-21 award could have gone to Molly Goodenbour of San Francisco, which finished fourth after being picked last by her colleagues. Or to Fortier, because GU won the conference by two full games.

Instead, they went with neither.

But whatever their rationale was last year, they abandoned it last weekend, because if Judkins deserved the award in 2021, Fortier had an even stronger case this year.

With the graduation of Townsend and the Wirth sisters, she had to replace 51% of the Zags’ points and rebounds, not to mention their leadership.

Several returning players were moved to new roles, newcomers struggled and injured point guard Kayleigh Truong was at half strength in narrow losses to Washington State and UC Davis.

Despite that, GU probably wins the WCC title for the 17th time in 18 years if not for its second-half meltdown in the Kennel against BYU.

“I think we did a good job this year,” Fortier said before practice on Wednesday as the Zags prepared for the WCC Tournament.

Asked about the coach of the year voting, Fortier replied tactfully.

“I think it’s an interesting question for the rest of the coaches who voted on it,” Fortier said.

Another question for the coaches to consider next year: How about a little consistency?