Lou Henson Award

The Lou Henson Award is an award given annually by Collegeinsider.com to the most outstanding mid-major men's college basketball player in NCAA Division I competition. The award, established in 2010, is named for esteemed men's college basketball head coach Lou Henson. Henson, who coached at Hardin–Simmons, New Mexico State, and Illinois, compiled 779 all-time wins. He is in the top 10 of NCAA coaching wins in men's basketball history.

Eligible conferences
The list of eligible conferences has always excluded all conferences that sponsor FBS football except for the MAC and the Sun Belt. The Atlantic 10 Conference, which has not sponsored football at all since 2006, has also been excluded throughout the award's history. Following major conference realignment that peaked in 2013, the WAC, which dropped football after the 2012 season, was added to the eligible list, while both offshoots of the original Big East Conference—the FBS American Athletic Conference and the current non-football Big East—were excluded from eligibility.

Definitions of the term "mid-major" in the context of college basketball vary widely. For purposes of both the Henson Award, Collegeinsider.com has established its own definition of the term, which includes members of the following conferences, as well as any basketball independents.


 * America East Conference
 * Atlantic Sun Conference
 * Big Sky Conference
 * Big South Conference
 * Big West Conference
 * Coastal Athletic Association
 * Horizon League
 * Ivy League
 * Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
 * Mid-American Conference
 * Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference


 * Missouri Valley Conference
 * Northeast Conference
 * Ohio Valley Conference
 * Patriot League
 * Southern Conference
 * Southland Conference
 * Southwestern Athletic Conference
 * Summit League
 * Sun Belt Conference
 * West Coast Conference
 * Western Athletic Conference