ATLANTA – Missouri State's Amaka Agugua-Hamilton was announced Tuesday as the recipient of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association's Spalding Maggie Dixon Rookie Coach of the Year award, given annually to the top first-year coach at the NCAA Division I level.

Coach Mox guided the Lady Bears to a historic season in 2019-20, with Missouri State going 26-4 overall and winning the Missouri Valley Conference regular season title with a 16-2 league mark while setting a school record for regular season victories. MSU's 26 wins this season also represented a school and conference record for a first-year head coach, and only 33 rookie Division I head coaches have ever won at least 26 games in their debut season.

Missouri State spent a combined 33 weeks in the USA Today Coaches and Associated Press polls, ending the year ranked 19th by the coaches, 23rd by the AP, and eighth in the NCAA RPI, the highest finish ever for an MVC team in that metric.

Agugua-Hamilton is the second first-year head coach in MVC history to be named Valley Coach of the Year, and the first to win an outright regular season title in their debut season.

The award honors a WBCA member NCAA Division I head coach who has led their team to a successful season during their first year on the sideline. It is named in honor of the late Maggie Dixon, who in her inaugural season as the Army head coach, led the Black Knights to the 2006 Patriot League title and their first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship tournament. Dixon, 29, died of an undiagnosed heart condition just weeks after on April 6, 2006.

The first Spalding Maggie Dixon NCAA Division I Rookie Coach of the Year award was presented in 2007, the year following Dixon's death. Visit WBCA.org to see a list of past recipients.