Antoine wins Sun Belt Coach of the Year; Hood, Taylor named to All-Conference Team

After claiming a share of the Sun Belt Conference regular season championship, Texas State head coach Zenarae Antoine was named the 2022-23 Sun Belt Coach of the Year. Da’Nasia Hood and Kennedy Taylor were named All-Sun Belt as the conference office announced its end-of-season awards for women’s basketball Monday.

Hood was named All-Sun Belt First Team while Taylor was named All-Sun Belt Second Team.

Antoine led the Bobcats to a 21-win season and their first conference championship in 15 years to earn the conference’s top coaching honor as voted on by her peers in the Sun Belt. The 12thyear head coach also became Texas State’s all-time winning coach in January when she recorded her 175th career win.

The Bobcats, who were picked to finish fifth in the preseason Sun Belt coaches poll, were the conference’s top defensive team for most of the season and currently lead the Sun Belt in scoring defense and rank third in field goal percentage defense. They also only lost back-to-back games once this season in November and never dropped consecutive conference games.

Antoine is the first Texas State women’s basketball coach to earn conference coach of the year honors since Suzanne Fox was named the Southland Conference Coach of the Year in 2008. It is the third time a Bobcat head coach has picked up the honor as Fox also won it in the Southland in 2000.

While Antoine was at the helm, graduate students Hood and Taylor picked up their third and second all-conference awards, respectively, in their careers.

Hood became a threetime first team all-conference selection with this year’s honor, which makes her only the third Bobcat in program history to have a trio of first team awards. She joins Linda Muelker (Lone Star Conference) and Tori Talbert (Southland Conference) in the exclusive club.

This season, Hood led the conference-champion Bobcats in scoring and rebounding with 17.0 points and 7.7 rebounds. In conference-only games, Hood was sixth in the Sun Belt in points (15.9) and eighth in rebounds (7.8).

Out of San Antonio, Hood turned it on down the stretch as she averaged 18.8 points, 8.1 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.3 steals in the final 10 games of the regular season. The Bobcats were 8-2 over the stretch and won by an average margin of nearly eight points.

Taylor, who earned her second career All-Sun Belt Second Team selection, paced the conference in assists all season long. The guard averaged 6.1 assists in overall games and 6.2 in conference-only contests. She currently ranks 10th in the country in total assists (176) and 14th in average assists (6.1).

Taylor, the NCAA Division I’s active leader in career assists, set two major records in the assists category this year. In November, she became Texas State’s all-time career assists leader while in February, with 11 assists on senior day, she set a new record for most career assists by a Sun Belt player.

She enters the conference tournament this week with 748 career assists.

Taylor also averaged double-figures in scoring with 10.4 points. The Dallas product also shot 41.2 percent from threepoint range and led the team in steals with 1.8 steals per game.

Texas State was one of only two teams to have multiple players on the All-Sun Belt teams (other: Troy, 3).

The Bobcats are set to make more history as they look for their first tournament championship since 2003 at the Sun Belt Conference Tournament.

Texas State will play the winner of App State-Louisiana at 7:30 p.m., Friday at Pensacola, Florida.