We are still a couple of months away from the tip-off of a new college basketball season, which means that we have plenty of time to start preparing for the action ahead. We will do so via a series of season previews featuring the best players/coaches in the country. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel continues our coverage with new Long Beach State coach Chris Acker, who talked about starting his new job and his expectations for this season.
You played basketball at D-2 Chaminade: what is the biggest difference between D-2 and D-1? Most D-2 guys could also play D-1 so there is not a lot of difference from a talent standpoint: it is more about resources/funding: how you travel, what you eat, arena size etc. Much of it is out of your control.
Despite only starting 3 games as a junior you declared for the 2004 NBA draft as an early entrant, and after not being selected you played pro basketball for several years in the US/Europe/China: why did you go pro, and what is your favorite memory from your time as a pro? I felt that if I did not take the opportunity at that time to turn pro then it would never happen. In China I got to climb the Great Wall and experience a totally new atmosphere.
As an assistant coach at Citrus College you won a state championship in 2008 and went 92-9 during your 6-year run: did it reach a point where your team just expected to win every time they stepped onto the court? I would not say that we expected to win but we were prepared to win. Those days after those 9 losses were probably the most stressful of our lives because we had fallen short. We did not hang our heads but rather attacked the areas that we needed to improve in so that we never felt that way again.
As an assistant to Brian Dutcher at San Diego State you finished the 2020 conference tourney with a 30-2 record: what was your reaction when you learned that the NCAA tourney was canceled due to COVID? It was heartbreaking for me but even more so for our players who had put in the work. When we were unable to play in the NCAA tourney it hurt because we knew that we were capable of making a run so not getting to experience that was the hardest part.
Take me through the magical 2023 NCAA tourney:
Darrion Trammell made the game-winning FT with 1.2 seconds left in a 1-PT win over Creighton in the Elite 8, then Lamont Butler made the game-winning jumper at the buzzer in a 1-PT win over FAU in the Final 4: how was your blood pressure doing after those amazing back-to-back wins? After we beat Charleston in the 1st round our approach was that we were playing with house money at that point. People had previously said that Coach Dutcher was incapable of winning in March so once we got that monkey off our back we felt that it was our year. The matchups made sense for us defensively even though we were playing against high-caliber players/coaches. Success in March is about making plays so I felt that we would emerge victorious because our players were good enough. I hoped it would happen and I trusted in the work that we had put in so I was excited to compete with those guys.
In the title game you lost to UConn: what was it like to face Dan Hurley with a title at stake? We played UConn each of the last 2 years and obviously did not get it done, but every time we played them we knew that they were the best team in the country. It was 2 well-deserving programs competing against each other: they were the better team and were rightfully crowned champions so hats off to them.
Last April you were hired as head coach at Long Beach State: why did you take the job, and how is it going so far? I took the job because when I 1st got into coaching I remember facing Long Beach State while working at Hawaii. My family lived in Long Beach and I knew that it was its own little world so I felt it would by my dream job. I was from the area and it was a community that was proud to be from Long Beach. A lot of former coaches had success at the program and took it to new heights and there were plenty of players who played in the NBA/Olympics after leaving a great lineage. When you take over a job you cannot control which job you get because it is hard to get these jobs. It is going well: it is still a work in progress every single day but the desire to be great is there and the administration/community are awesome.
In November you have a road trip to Spokane: how do you like your chances against Gonzaga in “The Kennel”? I am not 1 of those people who focuses on teams we are not about to face: I just take it 1 day at a time. If I thought about Gonzaga then that would probably mean we lost all of the games before that 1. Coach Mark Few is a legend who just won the Olympics so we are fortunate for the opportunity to play in their gym.
Most of your roster is from California with 1 guy each from Georgia/Maryland/Canada/Indonesia: what sort of recruiting philosophy do you have? We want to stay local and recruit guys from this area. We love our guys from out-of-state who we got based on our relationships in the recruiting world but our identity will be based on the great players in this area. We have a connection with this community and want to make it a better place, which starts with recruiting right here.
What are your goals for the upcoming season, and what are your expectations for the upcoming season? We do not put any limitations on ourselves or pre-determine what will happen. There are great things coming and we will chase them every single day. Everybody is excited/motivated and we are chasing greatness.