For the second time in his five seasons on CSKA Moscow's bench, Dimitris Itoudis has been voted by his peers as the winner of the Alexander Gomelskiy Coach of the Year award. With a boundless belief in his players and their mission, Itoudis guided CSKA to victory at the 2019 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four, claiming the club's second continental title since he took over the bench in 2014. CSKA finished the 2018-19 season with a league-best 29-7 record after outlasting Real Madrid in the semifinals and Anadolu Efes Istanbul in the championship game to lift the club's eighth EuroLeague title, half of which have come in the last 13 years. Itoudis, 48 years old, had led CSKA to the same title in 2016, the first time he was chosen Coach of the Year. With his five additional EuroLeague titles won as an assistant coach with Panathinaikos Athens between 2000 and 2011, Itoudis is just the third person ever to lift the trophy as many as seven times.
The Alexander Gomelskiy EuroLeague Coach of the Year award is voted on by the 16 head coaches of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague teams, with the stipulation that no coach vote for himself. Itoudis edged Ergin Ataman of Anadolu Efes Istanbul, who finished second in the voting. Sarunas Jasikevicius of Zalgirs Kaunas placed third. Itoudis joins Zeljko Obradovic, his one-time mentor, Pablo Laso and Ettore Messina as the only men to be chosen as the Coach of the Year two or more times. With both of theirs from their time in Moscow, Itoudis and Messina give CSKA four such trophies, which are named after the club's late, legendary coach and honorary president. No other club has more than two Coach of the Year awards.
CSKA won the first eight games out of the regular season and then returned to triumph in 11 of the last 12 before the playoffs. In between, CSKA hit a rough spot in November and December, losing four games in seven rounds. Through it all, Coach Itoudis kept his finger on the team's pulse and was never afraid to shake things up. Itoudis used nine different starters in CSKA's four-game playoff series victory over KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria Gasteiz, and his confidence in his leaders never wavered. After former MVP Nando De Colo turned in his worst playoff performance in a CSKA uniform in Game 2 – the team's first home loss in the playoffs since 2008 – Itoudis doubled down on his star. De Colo then carried CSKA in Games 3 and 4 with his two-highest scoring playoff games ever (28 and 27 points) as CSKA took the series. And when CSKA faced elimination in the semifinals, down by 14 points with 14 minutes left against defending champ Real Madrid, Itoudis did now waver, keeping his team calm and composed. Sure enough, De Colo scored 10 fourth-quarter points to lead a comeback victory, and in the championship game 48 hours later, CSKA held off Efes to take the crown.