How is the conference coach of the year decided upon? This is not a complaint but a more of a help me understand question, I took over the job at W Alabama this season https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=12189 and am now in the tournament after an undefeated conference schedule. The other conference champions went 17-12 without a bid to either tournament. https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=12184 I went 24-5, SIM AI won the coach of the year, can someone help me figure out how I didn't win? Is it because I just took over the team?

CCOY is based off conference games only, which is how you can occasionally have a NCOY who didn't even get COY honors in his conference.

I also recall that it is based off the expectation of how a team will do -- so a dominant team in a weak league that is "supposed" to go 16-0 will likely be at a disadvantage against an "unexpected" team that somehow pulled together a 13-3 campaign. I didn't pull the data for every team in the league, but it looks like this latter part is what may have been the issue -- it appears your team was likely the league frontrunner going into the season whereas Rockhurst has probably outperformed expectation to get the championship on its side of things.

It's also got a lot to do with improvement over the previous season. 16-0 followed 16-0, whereas the winner took at 4-12 team and turned them into 12-4.