Finalist - 2009 Coaches of the Year powered by Critical Reload

When Sean Miller left Xavier to accept the head coaching position at the University of Arizona, he recommended his top aide, Associate Head Coach Chris Mack, for the job he was leaving.  The AD performed thorough due diligence (including we are told reviewing our list of Rising Stars) and came back to the assessment that Miller had made, that Mack was the best person for the Xavier job.
On April 15th, Chris Mack was announced as the new head coach at Xavier.  Mack had spent the past five seasons as an assistant to Miller.

Mack, a two-time team captain as a player at Xavier, is 39 years old and a 1992 Xavier University graduate with a degree in communication arts.

Mack was XU’s Director of Basketball Operations from 1999-2001 under the late former XU head coach Skip Prosser. Mack spent three seasons as an assistant coach at Wake Forest under Prosser from 2001-04. He returned to Xavier in 2004 as an assistant coach under Miller. During his 10 years on the staffs at Xavier and Wake, Mack coached on nine teams that made postseason play, including eight teams that made the NCAA Tournament field.

Mack participated in Nike’s 2008 Villa 7 Consortium. The Villa 7 Consortium selected and invited some of the top men’s basketball assistant coaches from around the country to attend an educational symposium held on Nike’s campus in Beaverton, Ore., in May, 2008. The two-day event featured some of the greatest minds in coaching and served as a networking opportunity, as several athletic directors were on hand throughout the course of the program. The chief goal of the symposium was to provide opportunities for assistant coaches, who are considered to be the very best in college basketball.

Congratulations on the promotion Coach Mack!