BLUFFTON, Ohio - Bluffton University head coach Guy Neal has been named the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year for the 2006-07 season. Picked to finish ninth in the pre-season coaches' poll, Neal led the Beavers to an 18-8 mark which matched the most wins by a Bluffton men's basketball team. Bluffton finished the year with a program best 10-6 record and a tie for second place in the Heartland Conference.

Neal, who also won the Coach of the Year award in the HCAC following the 2000-01 campaign, has compiled a 204-260 mark during his 18 years as head coach of the Beavers. His 204 wins are the most ever by a Bluffton men's basketball coach. The Beavers 35 wins during the past two years are the most victories ever during back-to-back seasons and Bluffton has posted three consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 1963-66. With 18 wins this year, Neal notched his 13th season with 10 or more wins.

When Neal arrived at Bluffton University in the fall of 1989, he took over a program that had collected just four winning records in the school's previous 24 seasons. Neal equaled that number is his first nine seasons and has directed six of Bluffton's top ten teams in the 89 seasons of basketball in school history.

In 1991-92, Neal's third season at Bluffton, he guided Bluffton to the runner-up spot in the Association of Mideast Colleges and was named the AMC Coach of the Year. Bluffton's 16-10 record that season marked a plus-12 turnaround in wins from the previous season, a mark that drew national recognition as well. Neal took the Beavers back to the AMC championship game three seasons later in 1994-95. He was recognized by the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference as the Coach of the Year following the 2000-01 campaign when he guided Bluffton to a 16-9 record and a second place finish in the HCAC.

Neal's 2006-07 Beavers, who finished the year 18-8, 10-6 in the HCAC, matched the school mark of 18 wins set by the 1984-85 squad under the direction of Glenn Snyder. For the second consecutive season, Bluffton won a school-record 11 straight games.

This year marked the second time in three seasons that Neal has coached the HCAC Most Valuable Player. In 2004-05, Bluffton standout Scott Bergman took home the honor while Mike Anthony was recently voted MVP for 2006-07.

Bluffton tied for second place in the HCAC with NCAA automatic qualifier Transylvania University and reached the conference semi-finals for the third year in a row before falling to the Pioneers at Franklin College, 78-66.

-BEAVERS-