University of Massachusets Athletics
Lappas Earns Contract Extension
September 30, 2002 | Men's Basketball
Sept. 30, 2002
Amherst, Mass. -- University of Massachusetts Athletic Director Ian McCaw announced today that men's basketball coach Steve Lappas has been rewarded with a one-year contract extension. Lappas, beginning his second season as the Minuteman bench boss when practice opens Oct. 12, is now signed through the 2006-07 season.
"We are very pleased with the direction our men's basketball program is headed," McCaw said. "Coach Lappas and his staff have done an outstanding job recruiting very talented student-athletes, and we are looking for great things in the coming years under his leadership. His record, both academically and athletically with his programs, speaks for itself."
The Minutemen raced to a 4-0 start in Lappas' rookie campaign, highlighted by wins over Oregon, a team that captured the Pac-10 title en route to an Elite Eight run, and at NCAA Tournament entrant North Carolina State. The fast start, the school's best since the 1995-96 season, allowed Lappas to become just the third rookie coach in school history, and the first since Johnny Orr in 1963-64, to open his Massachusetts career with a 4-0 record.
Despite the quick start, Lappas' first UMass season ended with a 13-16 record. His program, though, did produce 2002 Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year Anthony Anderson, and his motion offense helped the Minutemen drain a school single season record 204, three-point field goals.
"I'm very appreciative of the confidence Chancellor Lombardi and Ian (McCaw) have shown in the progress we've made with this program," Lappas said. "We've laid a solid foundation for future success, and I'm confidant we will reach the goals we have set for this program. My family and I really enjoy the Amherst area and are looking forward to a long stay here."
Lappas, the first active Big East head coach to move to an Atlantic 10 Conference institution, came to UMass after nine highly-successful seasons at Villanova University, where he guided the Wildcats to a 174-110 (.613) record and seven postseason appearances (four NCAA, three NIT). Lappas' 97 career Big East victories ranks sixth all-time in league history (and was third among active league coaches behind Syracuse's Jim Boeheim and Connecticut's Jim Calhoun when he left the Main Line). From 1994 through 2001, no Big East team put together more 20-win seasons (six) than Lappas' Wildcats. In addition, six former Wildcats were selected in the NBA Draft during his 'Nova tenure.
He owns a 243-188 (.564) mark in 14 seasons as a Division I head coach, with eight postseason tournament trips on his resume (four NCAA, four NIT). More importantly, though, every one of his senior student-athletes, in stops at Massachusetts, Villanova and Manhattan, have left with degree in hand.