LSU hires David Patrick as associate head coach

BATON ROUGE – LSU men’s basketball head coach Matt McMahon announced on Wednesday that Sacramento State Head Coach David Patrick is returning to Baton Rouge to join the Tiger staff as Associate Head Coach.

Patrick, well-known as a veteran collegiate and international coach with nearly 20 years of coaching experience, comes to LSU after serving two years as the head men’s coach at Sacramento State.

“I am incredibly excited to welcome David Patrick and his family to our LSU coaching staff,” said Coach McMahon. “He is an outstanding basketball coach and an elite recruiter who has impacted winning at every stop on his journey. Coach Patrick brings tremendous experience and success to our program. He has been a Division I Head Coach, an assistant coach for the Australian National Team winning a bronze medal in the 2021 Olympics, and has coached in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

“I love Coach Patrick’s investment in player development and in building relationships. He has recruited and helped to develop multiple NBA Draft picks throughout his career. I look forward to the new ideas, solutions, and energy he will bring to our program. We can’t wait to get started this summer.”

Sacramento State led the Big Sky Conference in rebound margins the last two seasons and finished among the top 25 teams in the nation both years. His 2023-24 team advanced to the semifinals of the conference tournament, the first time the team had won two games at the postseason event since joining the league in 1996.

Patrick is known as a top-flight recruiter and helped bring LSU a top 5 recruiting class in 2013 and 2015. That 2015 class included No. 1 ranked high school player Ben Simmons, who now plays for the Brooklyn Nets; No. 15 Antonio Blakeney, who has become a star in the Chinese Basketball League; and, No. 39 Brandon Sampson, who has carved out a solid professional career, currently playing in the Canadian league.

The 48-year-old Patrick has recruited 11 players that have played in the NBA (including seven draft picks – four first rounders) and has coached 28 players that have gone on to play professionally, including 19 in the NBA.

A native of Bermuda who moved to Australia at the age of 10, Patrick elected to come to the United States in 1994 after a stint playing with the Australian Junior National Team. He ended up in Baton Rouge and played his senior year of high school basketball at Chapel Trafton where he led Trafton to the state quarterfinals and was chosen as the Louisiana Player of the Year.

He was elected the district’s MVP, was a First Team All-Parish selection and was selected to participate in the Louisiana State High School All-Star Game. He was also a member of junior national teams in Australia and named as an All-Australian player from 1992-94.

It would be with his Trafton high school coach, J. P. Piper, where he would get his start as a college coach after Piper was named Nicholls State head coach in the 2005-06 season

After high school, Patrick spent one season at Syracuse University where he was a member of the 1996 NCAA Final Four team that finished as the national runner-up. He then transferred to UL-Lafayette where he played for three seasons.

After a season at Nicholls, he ten was named associate head coach at Saint Mary’s where he served for four years (2006-10). In his final year there, the team went to the 2010 NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, winning a school record 28 wins and the West Coast Conference tournament title. The team also advanced to the 2008 NCAA Tournament and the quarterfinals of the 2009 NIT.

After leaving Saint Mary’s, he spent two seasons as a player personnel scout for the Houston Rockets, before accepting a job on the staff of Coach Jones.

After leaving LSU, he stopped at TCU for two seasons, including a 2017 NIT title season before two years as head coach at UC Riverside (2018-20). In 2020 he was a finalist for the Hugh Durham Award given to the top mid-major coach in the country.

Before arriving at Sacrament State, he served one season each at Arkansas and Oklahoma as associate head coach. The 2021 Arkansas team advanced to the NCAA Tournament Elite 8 and finished 25-7, while the 2022 Oklahoma squad advanced to the NIT Second Round.

Since 2019 he has been assistant coach for the Australian National Team and the Boomers won a bronze medal at the 2021 Olympics, Australia’s first men’s basketball Olympic medal. In 2019, the team reached the FIBA World Cup Final Four, which included the country’s first-ever win over the United States.

*LSU press release