University of Regina's Dave Taylor named coach of the year for second time in career

University of Regina women’s basketball head coach Dave Taylor, has been named Canada West Coach of the Year for the second time in his career.

“I got the notification from Canada West and it’s nice because the awards are voted on by the coaches in the conference so it’s your peers and that always means a little bit more for sure,” Taylor said.

This is the second time in his coaching career he has received the prestigious honour, the last time was in 2011-12.

“When you have good players and I [also] have awesome staff and assistant coaches, you know then that’s what causes this award,” Taylor said on winning it the second time around.

“It’s the players like Jade Belmore, she sent me a text saying, ‘congratulations’ and I text her back and said ‘Well, you had more to do with me winning this award than I did’”.

It comes as the Cougars had a successful season, ranked in some of USPORTS top spots all year. That was until the team was struck by a number of injuries which eventually lead to them falling short in the post-season.

“It’s funny, both years [I’ve won this award] we were ranked number one for a good part of the year. That year [2013] we went 20-0 in the conference and same thing this year, we had a good year. When you have a strong year, that helps and we’ve been pretty consistent this year,” Taylor said.

Despite the fact, the Cougars fell short this year and Taylor noted he’d rather be competing in the Canada West final right now, although the award is still a nice gesture recognizing the season the Cougars had.

“Obviously when you win an award, it’s nice for sure. I’d obviously trade playing tonight in the Can West Final but we’ve got a young team and we expect to be back here hopefully the next couple of years,” Taylor said.