Sacramento State’s men’s basketball team has hired former Sacramento Kings legend Mike Bibby as the team’s 17th head coach.
Bibby spent 14 seasons in the NBA and seven seasons with the Sacramento Kings. He helped lead the team to multiple playoff appearances, including helping take the Kings to the Western Conference finals in 2002.
He was a first-team all-American Pac-10 Conference Player of the Year in college. Bibby also helped The University of Arizona to a 1997 NCAA national championship. He was selected second overall in the 1998 NBA Draft by the Vancouver Grizzlies.
“Since 2001, Sacramento has felt like home to me,” Bibby said in a press release, adding that locals have a passion for their sports teams that is unmatched.
“I have always felt that passion, and will always be thankful for how I was embraced. Sacramento State is no different,” Bibby stated. “After seeing the campus, and meeting with President [Luke] Wood and Mark Orr, their vision for the university and program was something I shared. We are going to build, we are going to develop, and we are going to win.”
The Hornets’ basketball team was in need of a change after going 7-25 ending their season on a five game losing streak and finishing last in the Big Sky Conference.
Athletic Director Mark Orr said with the hiring of Bibby as the next coach, he could not be more excited about the future of the program.
“Mike was the best applicant in the field,” Orr said. “We chose him because he’s a tremendous basketball coach and a good leader for our young men that participate in the program. It certainly wasn’t just because he played in the NBA, even though that certainly helps, but he is the best coach and he’s going to lead us to success on and off of the floor.”
Orr said he was impressed with Bibby’s ability to articulate his vision for the program, for both how the team is going to play basketball on the court and how the student athletes will succeed academically in the community.
Bibby has NBA coaching experience that includes assistant coaching with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Memphis Grizzlies summer league teams. He’s helped coach the Puerto Rican National Team and the NBA G-League team Ignite.
He also has experience as a head coach in Phoenix where he coached the Shadow Mountain High School team to five state championships. He finished his time with the team with a 157-21 overall record, a six-year home winning streak and a 72-game winning streak.
This isn’t the only head coaching change that the athletic department has made of late, back in December, Sac State’s football team hired a new head coach for their upcoming season, former offensive coordinator from the University of Las Vegas, Brennan Marion.
The excitement for Sac State athletics is at an all-time high, especially for the football and basketball programs, according to Orr.
“I think it’s a great time to be a Hornet if you’re a student, a faculty member, an alum, a community member,” Orr said. “I anticipate large crowds at football season and basketball season and ticket sales going up and recruiting, because student athletes certainly want to play for Brennan Marion in football and now Mike Bibby in basketball. It’s just a great time to be part of Sacramento State athletics.”
Orr mentioned that the men’s and women’s basketball team will no longer be playing their games in The Nest, the basketball facility that was built in 1955. The teams will now be playing home games at The Well, the campus gym.
“We converted the main gym space in The Well into an event center space,” Orr said. “It will seat about 3200 seats. We’ll have retractable chair back seating, courtside seating, two large video boards, a ribbon board, so it will be a state-of-art venue for our basketball games next year.”
The official press conference for the introduction of Mike Bibby as the men’s basketball head coach will be next Tuesday at the Welcome Center, according to Orr.
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