Jim Harrick - Assistant Coach - Men's Basketball Coaches

Photo by: Shae Hammond

Jim Harrick

Title:
Assistant Coach

A National Championship head coach, Jim Harrick completed his third season as an assistant coach to the CSUN Men's Basketball team in 2020-21.

After a 16-year absence from collegiate coaching, Harrick joined head coach Mark Gottfried's coaching staff in 2018-19, reuniting the two for the first time since 1995 when they coached at UCLA. With Gottfried as his assistant, Harrick won a National Championship with the Bruins in 1995, becoming the first coach since John Wooden to win a title in Westwood.

Harrick has helped coach the Matadors to 37 wins over his three seasons on the sidelines. The Matadors finished second in the Big West standings in 2019-20, posting the program's best conference finish in 11 seasons. CSUN has led the Big West in scoring in both of Harrick's seasons. He has also coached two-time Big West Player of the Year and All-American Lamine Diane as well as two-time All-Big West First Team honoree Terrell Gomez.

Over his storied coaching career, Harrick has led four different programs to a combined 16 NCAA Tournament trips in his 23-year head coaching career. Overall, his teams have advanced to three Elite Eights and four Sweet 16 rounds. Harrick has won nine conference championships and amassed 470 career victories.

Harrick began his collegiate coaching career as an assistant, first with Utah State (1973-77) then with UCLA (1977-79) before taking over head coaching duties at Pepperdine (1979-88). A four-time West Coast Conference Coach of the Year, Harrick led the Waves to five WCC titles and four NCAA Tournament appearances.

In 1988, Harrick returned to UCLA as a head coach, leading the Bruins to eight NCAA Tournament appearances. Harrick's Bruins won the school's first national title in 20 seasons in 1995. He would be named the Naismith College Coach of the Year and Pac-10 Coach of the Year that season. Outside of John Wooden's 10 national titles, Harrick is the only Bruin head coach to date to win a National Championship.

Harrick also led the Bruins to two Elite Eights and three Sweet 16 appearances during his time in Westwood. He left UCLA in 1996 as the school's second-winningest head coach in program history (192 wins), behind only Wooden.

After a one-year hiatus, Harrick spent the next two years as the head coach of Rhode Island (1997-99) where he led the Rams to two NCAA Tournament berths including an Elite Eight appearance. Harrick also served as the head coach for four seasons at the University of Georgia, leading the Bulldogs to the NCAA Tournament twice.

Harrick worked as a scout for the Denver Nuggets and helped develop basketball in China following his collegiate head coaching career.

His extensive coaching career began at Morningside High School in Inglewood, Calif. where he served as an assistant coach from 1964-1969 and as head coach from 1970-1973 for the boys' basketball team. In his final season, Morningside earned a No. 1 ranking in the country.

Harrick graduated from the University of Charleston, formerly Morris Harvey College, in his native West Virginia with a degree in speech communication in 1960. He later earned his master's in education administration from USC.