Atlantic Ten Basketball

Dayton Flyers sophomore forward Obi Toppin was named the Associated Press' men's college basketball Player of the Year on Tuesday.

Dayton head coach Anthony Grant earned AP Coach of the Year honors. 

The AP's Aaron Beard noted Grant and Toppin are the first Flyers to win each award, and they join former St. Joseph's Hawks head coach Phil Martelli and guard Jameer Nelson (2004) as the only duo from the same school to pull off the feat in the last 40 years.

Toppin led the No. 3 Flyers with 20.0 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game. 

The 2019-20 campaign was Grant's third as head coach at Dayton, where he played from 1983 to 1987. The Flyers steadily improved under him, going 14-17, 21-12 and a program best 29-2 this season.

Toppin led Dayton's high-flying attack. According to FiveThirtyEight's Josh Planos on Feb. 25, the Flyers' 15.1 percent dunk share ranked second among mid-majors since 2010 behind only Wyoming's 17.1 percent in 2015.

Dayton was riding a 20-game winning streak when the NCAA cancelled its men's and women's tournaments because of the coronavirus pandemic, ending the season.

"Honestly, if you had asked me, I swear we could've won a national championship and our team was so ready to play in the tournament," Toppin told the AP. "We were so locked in. But because of this virus, things happened. It's just going to be a what-if for the rest of our lives, but it's something we're going to have to live with."

Bleacher Report's Jonathan Wasserman projected Toppin as the No. 4 pick to the Atlanta Hawks in his latest mock draft released last week, though Toppin has yet to officially declare for the 2020 NBA draft.

Iowa junior center Luka Garza finished second to Toppin in the AP Player of the Year voting. Marquette senior guard Markus Howard, Kansas senior center Udoka Azubuike and Oregon senior guard Payton Pritchard finished third, fourth and fifth, respectively.

Grant edged Baylor's Scott Drew and San Diego State's Brian Dutcher for Coach of the Year.

Hall of Famer Jim Calhoun, currently serving as the head coach of the Saint Joseph's men's basketball team, responded Saturday to accusations of "sexual discrimination and creating a hostile work environment" in the lawsuit filed against the university by former associate athletic director Jaclyn Piscitelli.

His statement read, in part:

"I was stunned and saddened to read the inflated and misleading headlines and the accusations directed at me this past Wednesday...by an ex-USJ employee and an all-too-eager click-driven media.

"I am angry and hurt that the reputation that I've worked so hard to achieve for over 50 years—actually, for more than 77 years—was so easily dismissed and thrown aside in return for headlines or eyeballs or whatever the appropriate term is here. And I'm especially angry that my career and my name are being used for legal grandstanding instead of in support for the victims of discrimination."

In the lawsuit, Piscitelli—who was fired by the university in June—accused Calhoun and top assistant Glen Miller of several incidents of treating her in a demeaning manner, per Dom Amore of the Hartford Courant.

Among her accusations:

"Calhoun, according to the 13-page complaint, asked Piscitelli to open his office door despite his keys being in his hand and, in another incident, knocked over a number of single-serve coffee 'K-cups' onto the floor and stepped on them, making Piscitelli clean up. She claimed Calhoun stated that if he made such a mess at home, his wife would clean up after him.

"The suit alleged Miller, who has not commented, told Piscitelli she should 'smile more and be more cheerful,' and said he would 'swipe left,' a reference to rejecting a person on the dating website Tinder. She also claims that Calhoun referred to her as 'hot.'"

In his statement responding to the accusations, Calhoun said he "firmly and unequivocally, at no time, knowingly treated any woman unfairly because of her gender. In addition, let me be clear, I have never treated any woman inappropriately."

He added that he wasn't "sure when asking a colleague if they would mind opening the door because my hands were full became discrimination or when self-deprecation for being an aging, clumsy husband became an insult."

He also said he would only use the word "hot" in reference to "the weather and the temperature of my morning coffee," adding that "the only woman I openly compliment is my wife of 53 years."

Calhoun, 77, served as the men's head coach at Saint Joseph in the 2018-19 season after the university shifted away from being a women-only school. He previously spent 14 seasons as the men's head coach at Northeastern and 26 seasons as the men's head coach at UConn, leading his teams to 23 NCAA tournament appearances.

He also won three national titles with UConn and was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005.