Chris Mack - Men's Basketball Coach - University of Louisville Athletic

Chris Mack

Title:
Head Coach
Email:
stephanied@GoCards.com
Phone:
852-6651

Superb tactician. Teacher. Motivator. Accomplished. Aggressive competitior. Passionate. Likes to have fun. Slam dunk hire.

All apt words that have been used to describe Chris Mack, the fourth-year leader for the University of Louisville’s tradition-rich men’s basketball program.

Mack, whose teams have participated in the NCAA Tournament in nine of his 12 seasons as a head coach, was named as the head coach at UofL on March 28, 2018 to much acclaim, a testament to his proven success throughout his career.

Among active coaches, Mack’s .685 winning percentage as a head coach ranks him 15th in the nation through the 2020-21 season and his
259 victories were the 12th most amassed by a coach in their first 11 seasons.

In his third season with the Cardinals in 2020-21, the previous national coach of the year navigated one of the least experienced teams in the nation through pandemic protocols and a shortened season to achieve a 13-7 record and 8-5 ACC mark, the 15th straight season UofL has won eight or more conference games. The Cardinals earned a mid-season Top 25 ranking with only a single upperclassman playing more than 65 minutes.

In 2019-20, Mack guided Louisville to a 24-7 record and a 15-5 ACC mark, which tied UofL for second in the regular season standings before the postseason was cancelled due to world health concerns. It was the best overall record through 31 games for a Louisville team in six years and marked the most conference victories for the Cardinals in their six years in the ACC. The Cards achieved a Top 15 ranking throughout the season, including two weeks as the nation’s top-ranked team in the AP and USA Today polls.

Mack is one of 19 coaches in college basketball history to lead their team to a No. 1 ranking within the first two years at their school, and one of just nine to do it in the last 30 years.

In his first season at Louisville, Mack guided the Cardinals to a 20-14 record and earned a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament while facing the nation’s fourth-toughest schedule. Picked to finish 11th in the ACC, UofL achieved a 10-8 conference record and earned a tie for sixth in the final regular season standings. The Cardinals beat four Associated Press Top 25 teams and were No. 22 in the nation in the NCAA’s NET rankings. Louisville ranked among the nation’s top 30 teams in both offensive (27th) and defensive efficiency (24th). Entering the season, UofL had returned one starter and about a third of its scoring and rebounding from the previous year.

Before joining UofL in nine seasons as the head coach at Xavier, Mack guided the Musketeers to a 215-97 record and eight NCAA Tournament appearances (the last five straight years), including reaching the Sweet 16 on four occasions and the Elite Eight in 2017. His teams won or shared three conference regular season championships while compiling a 105-49 league record over nine seasons in the Big East and Atlantic 10.

His 2017-18 squad achieved a 29-6 record, won Xavier’s first Big East Conference regular season championship and earned the school’s first-ever No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Mack was honored as the 2018 Big East Coach of the Year, NABC District 5 Coach of the Year, and he became the all-time coaching wins leader with the Musketeers. Xavier finished third in the final Associated Press poll – its highest ever ranking -- and last year’s team was one short of the school record for victories.

Mack signed a contract with the Cardinals for seven years, extending through the 2024-25 season. He is just the fourth head coach to guide the Cardinals in the last 50 years, following Denny Crum (1971-2001), Rick Pitino (2001-17) and David Padgett (2017-18). Mack is the 21st head coach in Louisville’s 107-year history and the seventh in the past 75 years.

Mack quickly embraced the Cards’ tradition by reaching out and continuing a dialogue with former UofL players and staff. On a broader scale, he has endeared himself to Cardinal fans with his engaging social media presence, direct approach, and his desire to instill toughness and cohesion in his team.

Mack, 51, received the 2016 Henry Iba Award as the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) National Coach of the Year while also earning the CBS Sports and Basketball Times magazine National Coach of the Year awards that season. He led Xavier to a 28-6 record in 2015-16 and achieved a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a No. 5 ranking in the final AP poll, which at the time was the school’s highest seed and ranking in school history.

His 2016-17 Xavier team made an NCAA Tournament run to the Elite Eight after entering the event as a No. 11 seed. His teams have reached the NCAA Sweet 16 on four occasions, in 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2017. As a player, assistant and head coach, Mack has been a part of 19 NCAA Tournament appearances.

Born Dec. 30, 1969 in Cleveland, Ohio, Mack was the 2010-11 Atlantic 10 Conference Coach of the Year in his second year as a head coach. In addition, he was the recipient of the 2011 Skip Prosser Man of the Year award, which was established in 2008 to honor those who not only achieve success on the basketball court but who display moral integrity off the court as well.

He was the 2009-10 Basketball Times Rookie Coach of the Year when, in his initial year, he guided Xavier to a 26-9 record, shared the Atlantic 10 Championship and advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16.

Mack served as a court coach for the 2016 USA Basketball Men’s U18 National Team training camp in the summer of 2016 at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Before rising to a head coaching position, Mack was a part of successful staffs throughout his career. He spent five seasons as an assistant on Sean Miller’s Xavier staff (2004-09) after serving on the staff of the late Skip Prosser at Xavier as director of basketball operations (1999-01) and as an assistant coach at Wake Forest (2001-04).

In 10 seasons as an assistant or operations director, he helped his teams produce a 229-96 record (.705), win four regular season titles and one conference tournament championship, and secure eight NCAA Tournament appearances, advancing to three Sweet 16s and one Elite Eight. Those teams won at least 20 games in nine of the 10 seasons.

Mack began his coaching career in 1993 as the junior varsity girls basketball coach at McAuley High School in Cincinnati. He was the varsity girls basketball coach at Mount Notre Dame High School in Reading, Ohio, for four years (1995-99), directing the team to four straight sectional titles and earning Cincinnati Post Coach of the Year honors in 1996.

A 1992 Xavier graduate with a degree in communication arts, Mack was a two-time team captain as a player at Xavier under then head coach Pete Gillen. He won the 1993 Midwestern City Conference (MCC) regular season championship (12-2 record) and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Mack was the 1987-88 Cincinnati Post Metro Player of the Year at St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati before going on to start for two seasons at Evansville under Jim Crews, winning an MCC Regular Season Championship and a trip to the second round of the 1989 NCAA Tournament as a freshman at Evansville. He transferred to Xavier after his sophomore season.

Mack and his wife, Christi, have two daughters, Lainee (16) and Hailee (15), and a son, Brayden (6). A native of Louisville, the former Christi Hester was the runner-up for Kentucky Miss Basketball as a senior at Holy Cross High School. She played basketball at Dayton, where she scored 1,268 career points and was later inducted into the university’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2014. She served as the Director of Basketball Operations for the Xavier women’s basketball team (2001-03) and more recently as the head girls basketball coach at Cincinnati’s Colerain High School Cardinals.

Mack and his wife created the Mack Family Foundation in 2016, a family-centered foundation whose mission is to serve, inspire and aid less fortunate children.