Michigan State assistant basketball coaches are Doug Wojcik, Mark Montgomery, and Thomas Kelley. Montgomery rejoined the basketball team on 7th June 2021.
The Spartans were on the verge of dropping many games before Tom's arrival. Izzo led the Spartans into their second NCAA National finals in the year 2000 with a thumping win over Florida by 89-76.
Michigan men's basketball has also won 15 Big Ten Championships from their participation in the Conference from 1904. They also have the second-longest active run in the NCAA basketball tournament.
The current head coach has led the team into 8 Final Four NCAA Tournaments setting the record for the most wins in 25 years of participation in NCAA tournaments.
Who Coaches Michigan State Basketball?
Tom Izzo has been the head coach for Michigan State basketball for 29 years. He joined the Spartans in 1995.
He is one of the longest-tenured basketball coaches in the history of the Big Ten Conference.
The Italian player initiated his coaching journey as a head coach for Ishpeming High School. He joined Northern Michigan University as an assistant coach where he served from 1979 to 1983.
Working as an assistant for Northern Michigan landed him as the assistant coach for Michigan State. Later, he was named the head coach for the Spartans in 1995.
The former player has been awarded National Coach of the Year 8 times and has a Big Ten-record 24 straight NCAA Tournament appearances.
One of his achievements was when he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on September 9, 2016.
He has made a career record of 666-267 for the Spartans in his 29-year tenure as a head coach.
Tom Izzo Coaching career
Ishpeming HS 1977 - 1979
Northern Michigan (assistant) 1979 - 1983
Michigan State (assistant) 1983 - 1995
Michigan State (Head Coach) 1995 - present
The 5-foot-7-inch coach led the 2001 Goodwill Games in getting a gold medal. He was later appointed as the head coach of the USA Basketball men's team for the 2003 Pan American Games.
From 2005 to 2008, he also served as a member of Quadrennium Committees which looks after the Collegiate Committee of USA Basketball.
MSU Basketball Coaching Staff
MSU basketball coaches list are mentioned below:
Doug Wojcik
Assistant Coach
Mark Montgomery
Assistant Coach
Thomas Kelley
Assistant Coach
Doug Wojcik - Assistant Coach
Doug Wojcik joined as an assistant coach in 2018. He had formerly worked with MSU as an assistant head coach from 2003 to 2005.
Wojcik played at Navy Midshipmen men's basketball from 1983 to 1987 as a point guard. On completion of his military service at the United States Naval Academy in 1987, he changed his passion to join as an assistant coach for Annapolis in 1990.
Doug joined the University of Tulsa men's basketball program as their head coach in 2005. His seven years in Tulsa were fruitful as he had four consecutive 20-win seasons and also won the 2008 College Basketball Invitational title.
After a successful tenure at Tulsa, he joined the College of Charleston in 2012 as the head coach where he worked for two seasons.
During the 2018-19 season, Michigan State selected Wojcik as Director of Recruiting. The Spartans had a successful season in 2019-20 where they won the third-consecutive Big Ten regular-season championship.
Mark Montgomery - Assistant Coach
Mark Montgomery was a former player at Michigan State who played from 1988 to 1992 as a captain.
The 6-foot player coached Central Michigan for four years under head coach Jay Smith from 1997. Mark was also the part of Mid-American Conference championship team.
In the season of 2001-2002, Montgomery was an associate head coach for Michigan State under Tom Izzo. He helped the Spartans in reaching three Final Fours as well as the National Championship game in 2009.
After coaching MSU for 10 seasons, Northern Illinois hired Montgomery as their head coach on March 24, 2011, as their 27th coach where he stayed till 2021.
He returned to his former club to join Izzo in the coaching department at MSU as a recruiting coordinator on June 7, 2021.
Thomas Kelley - Assistant Coach
Thomas Kelly is one of the most prominent Michigan basketball assistant coaches. Thomas was an athlete at MUS from 1995 till 1999.
He played 115 games in which he averaged 5.3 points per game and 2.0 assists per game during his Final Four team as a fifth-year senior player.
In 2000, Kelley joined as a European Professional Basketball Player after high school where he played 15 seasons in countries like Finland Holland, Israel, Austria, Hungary, and Turkey till May 2015.
In 2015–2016, Thomas served as a graduate manager at Michigan State. In addition to helping with scouting and film analysis for three seasons, he used to work in player development.
Kelly joined Western Michigan University starting his career as an assistant coach in 2018. In 2021–2022, he finished his fourth season working as the Denver Broncos assistant coach.
Later in June 2022, Thomas reunited with Michigan State University as an assistant coach.
Michigan State Basketball Coaches History
There have been a total of 16 head coaches throughout the Michigan State basketball coaches' history in 124 seasons history since 1898.
The following table depicts the Michigan's coaches history over the years:
Charles Bemies
1899–1901
George Denman
1901–1903
Chester Brewer
1903–1910
John Macklin
1910–1916
George Gauthier
1916–1920
Lyman Frimodig
1920–1922
Mysterious Walker
1922–1924
John Kobs
1924–1926
Benjamin Van Alstyne
1926–1949
Al Kircher
1949–1950
Pete Newell
1950–1954
Forddy Anderson
1954–1965
John Benington
1965–1969
Gus Ganakas
1969–1976
Jud Heathcote
1976–1995
Tom Izzo
1995–present
Charles Bemies was the first to become the head coach for the team in 1899 and served till 1901 maintaining a .714 winning percentage.
Going through the team's coaching history, the longest-serving manager is Tom Izzo who joined the team in 1995 and has been coaching there since then.
Besides Izzo, Jud Heathcote, Benjamin Van Alstyne, and Forddy Anderson were the coaches who were the head coaches for the Spartans for more than ten years.
Benjamin served for 22 years from 1926 to 1949 whereas Heathcote served from 1976 till 1995 before Izzo Joined the team.
