NABC Announces 2018 NAIA Coaches and Players of the Year

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) announced today the 2018 recipients of the NABC/NAIA coaches and players of the year.
 
Kelvin Starr of The Master’s University (Calif.) and Indiana Wesleyan University’s Greg Tonegal have been selected as the 2018 NABC/NAIA Coaches of the Year.
 
Ryan Imhoff of Carroll College (Mont.) and Kyle Steigenga of Cornerstone University (Mich.) have been selected as the 2018 NABC Coaches’ NAIA Players of the Year in Division I and Division II respectively.
 
The NABC/NAIA Coach of the Year in Division I, Starr has turned around a program that won just four games in 2015-16.  The Australian native guided the Mustangs to 27 wins in his first season and a program first Golden State Athletic Conference tournament title.
 
This season, The Master’s had a 29-3 record, were the top-ranked team in NAIA Division I in early February and won a second GSAC tournament title.
 
Tonagel’s teams have dominated in NAIA Division II, winning their third national title in five years.  The Wildcats topped St. Francis (Ind.), 84-71, in the NAIA Division II championship game on March 13, repeating titles also won in 2014 and 2016.
 
The winningest coach in IWU history, Tonagel’s team had a 31-7 mark this season, raising his won-lost record over 13 seasons to 361-98, a .786 winning percentage.
 
Imhoff, a native of Napa, Calif., ranked 15th in the NAIA in scoring (19.8) to go along with a team-high 7.2 rebounds per game, 3.7 assists per game, 2.4 steals per game and 1.0 blocks per game. In national rankings, he was fourth in steals average, fifth in free throw percentage (.888) and 27th in field goal percentage (.532). The 2017-18 Frontier Conference Player of the Year led his team to a second-round trip to the NAIA Division I Men’s Basketball National Championship.
 
The 6-6 senior guard scored at least 10 points in 33 of his 34 games on the year, including a season-best 34 in the win against Montana State-Northern on Dec. 2, 2017. The senior guard finished his career with 1,953 career points (15.6 ppg), 769 total rebounds (6.2 rpg), 338 assists (2.7 apg), 207 steals (1.7 spg) and 124 blocks (1.0 bpg). 
 
The first player in Cornerstone men’s basketball history to earn this distinction, Steigenga is a four-time first team All-American. The Holland, Mich. native led the Golden Eagles to a 30-5 record, including a 19-1 mark in the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference en route to the team’s 10th conference title and a 14th national championship appearance. Cornerstone, which won the national title in Steigenga’s freshman campaign, reached the quarterfinals at the 2018 national championship before losing to eventual national runner-up Saint Francis (Ind.).
 
On the season, the 6-6 forward tallied 727 points (20.8 points per game), 298 rebounds and shot 59.9 percent from the field. The senior’s point total ranked seventh nationally. Steigenga concluded a decorated career with 3,023 points and 1,201 rebounds – both of which rank among the top two totals in program history.