UCI’s Turner up for award

UC Irvine men’s basketball coach Russell Turner is one of 20 finalists for the 2017 Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award.

The winner will be announced during the Final Four in Phoenix this weekend.

The award, named after the late Skip Prosser, who passed away in 2007 while the head coach at Wake Forest, is presented annually to those who not only achieve success on the basketball court, but who also display moral integrity off it.

Turner, who has guided the UCI program for the past seven years, has led the Anteaters to the postseason each of the past five seasons, including the NIT earlier this month. His UCI teams have won 114 games during that five-year span for an average of 22.8 per season.

He was named 2017 Big West Conference Coach of the Year after leading UCI to the regular-season title for the third time in the last four years.

Turner’s Anteater teams have won 60 Big West regular-season games over the past five years.

— From staff reports