Rock Hill, S.C. – Winthrop head men's basketball coach Pat Kelsey has been named a finalist for the 2021 Skip Prosser Man of the Year award.

Kelsey guided the Eagles to back-to-back Big South Conference Championships after an 80-53 win over Campbell on Mar. 7. Winthrop is 23-1 overall and finished with a program record 17 conference victories (17-1). The team opened the season 16-0 and won 21 consecutive games dating back to the end of the 2019-20 season. Both are program records.

The 2021 Big South Conference Coach of the Year spent eight seasons at Wake Forest under the late Skip Prosser. In 2015-16 Kelsey was also named a finalist for the award.

The Skip Prosser Man of the Year award honors those who not only achieve success on the basketball court but who display moral integrity off the floor as well.
 
In six years with the Deacons, Prosser posted a 126-68 record. For his career, he was 291-146 in 14 seasons including six as the head coach at Xavier and one year at Loyola (Md.).
 
At Wake Forest, Prosser's teams averaged 21 wins per season while playing in arguably the nation's most difficult league, the Atlantic Coast Conference. Prosser won 100 games at an ACC school quicker than all but two coaches in the 55-year history of the conference. He coached NBA stars Chris Paul and Josh Howard, led the Demon Deacons to the first No. 1 national ranking in school history and earned ACC Coach of the Year honors in 2003.
 
Prosser passed away of an apparent heart attack on July 26, 2007 in his office at Wake Forest. He had just returned from his morning jog.
 
The recipient of the 2021 award will be announced on April 1.
 
2021 SKIP PROSSER MAN OF THE YEAR AWARD FINALIST
 
Casey Alexander (Belmont), Chris Beard (Texas Tech), Mike Boynton (Oklahoma State), Wayne Brent (Jackson State), John Dunne (Marist), Dana Ford (Missouri State), Leonard Hamilton (Florida State), Lew Hill (UTRGV), Chris Holtmann (Ohio State), Michael Huger (Bowling Green), Donte' Jackson (Grambling), Mike Jones (Radford), Robert Jones (Norfolk State), Pat Kelsey (Winthrop), Tod Kowalczyk (Toledo), Greg Lansing (Indiana State), Shantay Legans (Eastern Washington), Carmen Maciariello (Siena), Bob Marlin (Louisiana), Ryan Odom (UMBC), Lamont Paris (Chattanooga), Mark Schmidt (St. Bonaventure), Rob Senderoff (Kent State), Todd Simon (Southern Utah), Byron Smith (Prairie View A&M)