The Big Sky Conference announced on Tuesday morning that Thunderbird head coach Todd Simon has been named Coach of the Year for the 2020-21 season following Southern Utah’s Regular Season Championship.
“What Coach Simon has accomplished at Southern Utah University in such a relatively short amount of time is amazing,” SUU Director of Athletics Debbie Corum said. “He took over a struggling program, and turned it into a winner, then a champion. The passion and love he has for the student-athletes is unmatched. He has cared about every aspect of his student-athletes and that is the best part of this championship. It was like watching someone build a very fine house brick-by-brick and paying attention to every detail.”
Along with claiming the Regular Season Championship, Simon navigated his team to the No. 1 overall seed in the Big Sky Conference Tournament, and the first BYE to the quarterfinals that the program had ever received.
The Thunderbirds have set a high bar this season, knocking off a number of previous milestones. SUU finished the regular season with a .864 winning percentage, which was the best in the program’s Division I history.
They finished their Big Sky Conference schedule with a .857 winning percentage, with the previous high for the program in the league being .450. They put four players on the Big Sky All-Conference Team, which was a program high by exactly double. And they also had four different student-athletes named Big Sky Player of the Week. Previously, the Thunderbirds had never had more than two Player of the Week honors in the same season.
Along with the overall accolades, the Thunderbirds finished the season 14-0 at home. This is only the second time in the program’s Division I history that they finished the regular season flawless at home, and marked the most victories at home in a single season in the program’s DI tenure.
The 2020-21 edition of the Thunderbirds finished the regular season with the best scoring offense in the Big Sky, averaging 84.2 points per game. That number puts them No. 6 in the entire NCAA heading into the Big Sky Tournament. They also had the largest scoring margin, with a +15.8 on the year.
Rebounding was a strong suit for the Thunderbirds as well this season, as they led the Big Sky in rebounding margin with a +9.0.
SUU also finished first in the league in defensive rebounds (28.5), first in three-point field goals made (8.9), second in field goal percentage (.478), second in steals (7.1), third in assists (14.4)
Simon took over the Thunderbirds ahead of the 2016-17 season. In 2015-16 the Thunderbirds won just six games, and hit the same number of victories in his first season. However, The T-Birds did something in 2017 that they hadn’t done before, as they won a Big Sky Conference Tournament game. In triple overtime the No. 11 seeded Thunderbirds knocked off the Montana State Bobcats 109-105, and the momentum started to build for Simon and his Thunderbirds.
The following year, the Thunderbirds attacked the 2017-18 season with a re-tooled roster and renewed confidence. The Thunderbirds more than doubled their winning percentage and made it all the way to the Big Sky Conference Tournament semifinals by knocking off both Idaho State and Idaho. Suddenly, a program that hadn’t won a Big Sky Tournament game two seasons prior had won three in just two seasons.
Success continued to grow during the 2018-19 season, as the Thunderbirds secured their first postseason berth since 2000-01, hosted their first-ever postseason game and finished with a .500 record for the first time since 2006-07. That season the Thunderbirds once again qualified for the semifinals of the Big Sky Tournament, knocking off both Idaho State and Northern Colorado. In the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament, SUU secured it’s first-ever postseason victory as they knocked off Drake inside the America First Event Center 80-73 in overtime.
Like with the majority of every team in the NCAA, the remainder of the 2019-20 season will remain a mystery due to cancelations related to COVID-19, but the Thunderbirds finished the season 17-15 and won the last game they played against the Idaho Vandals in the first round of the Big Sky Tournament.
The season was highlighted, however, by the Thunderbirds knocking off Nebraska on the road. It was the program’s first victory over a Power 5 Conference foe since 1996, and SUU’s first-ever victory over a Big Ten team. It was also only the second-ever Big Sky Conference victory over a Big Ten opponent. The Thunderbirds finished the season ranked 161st in the KenPom Rankings, which was a jump up of 112 spots from the previous year and was the highest ranking the program had reached in the KenPom Era (2001).
Simon is a native of Fowler, Michigan. He and his wife Katie have four children: Rece, Raylan, Ryder and Sophia.
