Willis Wilson

Title: Assistant Coach Willis Wilson

Born: Indianapolis, Indiana

Hometown: Silver Spring, Maryland

Birthday: March 22, 1960

Acheivements: Player and graduate from Rice 1982. Best dressed coach in NCAA basketball 2001 and 2007. – 1999 Western Athletic Conference Mountain Division Coach of the Year; Houston Chronicle, Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year; 2002, 2007 Winner of Basketball Coaches District 9 Coach of the Year; 2007 Blacks in Blue Distinguished Alumni Award, Presented by Association of Rice University Black Alumni (ARUBA); 2008 John Lotz Barnabas Award, Presented by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes

Coaching Career: Wilson was assistant coach at Stanford University under head coach Mike Montgomery in 1991. At Rice Wilson was an assistant coach from 1985 to 1991 and was then head coach for the Owls between 1992 and 2007.

Head coaching record: Wilson lead the Rice Owls to a 219-246 record over his fifteen plus seasons as head coach. Wilson is the winningest coach in Rice school history and took the team to three NIT tournament berths. After a 22 win season in 2003-2004, Wilson was interviewed for the head coaching position at the Ohio State University.

Wilson coached players Adam Keefe (Stanford), and Morris Almond (Rice) a first round NBA draft pick. He is considered to be a good guard coach, evidenced by 5 former players suiting up in the NBA, all guards.

Wilson is an extremely respected among his coaching peers. According to Roy Williams, “He is one of the most solid people in college basketball coaching. You might hear some innuendoes or rumors about somebody not doing things the right way, but you are not going to hear that about Willis because he is of great integrity and of the highest morals. He is the kind of person we should have in college basketball.”

References:

http://www.collegeinsider.com/wilson/bio.html

External links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Wilson