Sacramento State hires former NBA star Mike Bibby as new basketball coach
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Former Sacramento Kings star Mike Bibby was hired to take over the struggling basketball team at Sacramento State.
Athletic director Mark Orr announced the move on Tuesday, saying he believes Bibby can help generate excitement for the program.
“It’s a second home for me,” Bibby said. “It’s a storybook, not ending, but a storybook story of coming back to Sacramento for basketball purposes and instead of playing now I’ll be coaching and do my best to change this program around and turn it into a winning program.”
Bibby is already in the process of putting together a staff and was hired at the same time the NCAA transfer portal opened. Bibby said he will target the portal aggressively in his first season to improve the roster with players who will fit his style of playing a fast-paced game featuring an aggressive, pressure defense.
“We’re going to get kids that will want to come play and want to come win,” he said.
Bibby won an NCAA title as a player at Arizona in 1997 and then starred in the NBA for 14 seasons, with his most successful stint coming during seven seasons with the Kings. He helped Sacramento reach Game 7 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals before losing to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Bibby retired in 2012 and has had various coaching jobs since. He won five state titles and coached 25 players who received college scholarships in six seasons as coach at Shadow Mountain High School in Phoenix. He also has been an assistant for the Puerto Rican National Team, summer league teams for Cleveland and Memphis, and the NBA G-League Ignite.
Sacramento State has been looking to increase its profile in college athletics under President Luke Wood. The school has hopes of being able to move from the FCS level of college football to the FBS level and a spot in a bigger conference such as the Mountain West or even a newly formed Pac-12. The Hornets are currently a member of the Big Sky.
The move to hire Bibby is part of that effort as he will try to revive a struggling program.
“That’s not my decision to make,” Bibby said. “I don’t handle that stuff. But regardless, we’ve got to play basketball. Whether we’re in the YMCA conference or the Lifetime conference, we’ve got to go out there and play basketball. It was appealing to me just to come back to Sacramento to get my start.”
The Hornets went 7-25 this season under interim coach Michael Czepil, who was promoted last spring after David Patrick left to take a job as associate head coach at LSU.
Sacramento State had gone 28-42 in two seasons under Patrick and the program has never made an NCAA Tournament since moving up to Division I in 1991-92. The Hornets have had a winning record only twice since then, going 16-14 in 2019-20 and 21-12 in 2014-15.
“I have a lot of confidence in myself and a lot of confidence in my staff,” Bibby said. “I told Mark and Luke, I’m going to turn this thing around. I’m not saying we’re going to go 27-0 or whatever it is. But there’s going to be changes that come with this. We’re going to have guys that play hard and that play for each other. We’re headed for that NCAA Tournament bid.”
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By JOSH DUBOW
AP Sports Writer
