Cal men's basketball added to their staff today, as former Pepperdine head coach Lamar "Marty" Wilson has been announced as the third assistant on staff. Keith Brown, who served as the third assistant after Theo Robertson went on personal leave, will return to his director of basketball operations role. Robertson parted ways with Cal last month.
Wilson, who spent the past seven years at Pepperdine as their head coach before this, gives the Bears more experience on the bench. With Wilson's hire, every coach on Cal's bench has been a head coach at the Division I level.
From the release:
"I'm really excited to welcome Marty to our staff. His knowledge of the game, experience and energy is what excites me the most about being a part of what we are building," Wying Jones said. "His experience as a head coach is invaluable, and from a culture standpoint I couldn't have found anyone that embodies our family aspect better than Marty."
Wilson joins the Golden Bears as an assistant coach after serving seven seasons at the helm for his alma mater, Pepperdine. He helped transform the Waves from a 10-win team in his first season to back-to-back 18-win seasons in 2014-15 and 2015-16, giving them their first consecutive winning seasons since 2001-03. Pepperdine finished fourth in the West Coast Conference in both the 2015 and 2016 seasons, and the 2015 squad allowed just 61.6 points and finished the season second in the nation in three-point field goal percentage defense (27.0 percent).
Wilson also has a lengthy history as an assistant, spent at Pepperdine (his alma mater), San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, and Utah.
From the release:
Prior to becoming head coach in 2011, Wilson served as the associate head coach for the Waves under Tom Asbury beginning in 2008. He rejoined Pepperdine after coaching stints at San Diego (1996-98), UC Santa Barbara (1998-2004) and Utah (2004-08).
As the top assistant under Bob Williams in Santa Barbara, Wilson helped the Gauchos to a divisional title in 1999, a Big West Tournament title and NCAA Tournament berth in 2002, and a Big West regular-season title and NIT berth in 2003.
At Utah, Wilson helped head coach Jim Boylen guide the Utes to a 29-6 record en route to the Mountain West regular-season title and NCAA Sweet 16 appearance. The Utes finished the season ranked 18th nationally.
Following his graduation from Pepperdine in 1989, Wilson spent a year as an assistant at his high school, Simi Valley, then rejoined the Waves in 1990. During his first six seasons on the bench, Pepperdine earned NCAA Tournament berths in 1991, 1992 and 1994, and took three WCC regular-season titles (1991, 1992, 1993) plus a trio of WCC tournament titles (1991, 1992, 1994). After head coach Tony Fuller resigned in 1995-96, Wilson took over as interim head coach and guided the Waves to an upset of a Steve Nash-led Santa Clara team before Wilson departed for San Diego.
With the hire of Wilson, Wyking Jones appears to be doing something similar to what Justin Wilcox, with getting as much head coaching experience as possible with his assistants.
Former Cal radio play by play guy, current ESPN play by play guy and occasional Bill Walton wrangler Roxy Bernstein had praise for the hire.
