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Men's Basketball
- Title:
- Assistant Coach
- Email:
- lukemurray@GoCards.com
- Phone:
- 852-6651
Luke Murray, who has 13 years of experience on collegiate basketball staffs, is in his third season at the University of Louisville as an assistant coach to Cardinals head coach Chris Mack.
Last year in his second season with the Cardinals, Louisville tied for second in the ACC while posting a 24-7 overall record.  The Cardinals finished the virus-shortened season positioned eighth in the nation in the NCAA’s NET rankings and were 14th by AP and 13th in the USA Today coaches poll.  In his first year on the UofL staff in 2018-19, the Cardinals posted a 20-14 record while advancing to the NCAA Tournament against the nation’s fourth-toughest schedule.  Picked 11th in the preseason ACC poll, the Cards achieved a 10-8 record and earned a tie for sixth in the final standings.Â
As the Cardinals’ recruiting coordinator, Murray was instrumental in building UofL’s six-man 2019 signing class, which ranked ninth in the nation by ESPN.com, 10th by Rivals.com and 11th by 247sports.com. He was listed among the top ten coaches in the nation under 40 years old in a recent ESPN ranking and has been recognized as one of the top five recruiters in the nation by 247Sports.  He was featured in The Athletic’s 40 Under 40 in October 2020, noting 40 influential people in college basketball who are under the age of 40, and was recently included among 20 names to watch for when the coaching carousel begins to turn.
Murray works closely with the Cardinals’ perimeter players, including recent graduate Jordan Nwora.  After becoming the ACC’s Most Improved Player two years ago, Nwora continued to improve while earning All-America honors as a junior before moving on to enter the NBA Draft.
Before joining the Cardinals, Murray operated on college basketball staffs for 11 seasons at Xavier, Rhode Island, Towson, Wagner and Arizona. During his three seasons at Xavier (2015-18), the Musketeers produced an 81-26 record (.757) and advanced in the NCAA Tournament each year. Their 2017-18 squad achieved a 29-6 record, won Xavier’s first Big East Conference regular season championship, earned the school’s first-ever No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and finished third in the final Associated Press poll. In addition, Murray played a key role as the Xavier staff assembled three straight nationally-ranked recruiting classes.
Murray worked two years at Rhode Island under current Connecticut coach Dan Hurley (2013-15), including the 2014-15 season when the Rams finished 23-10 overall, tied for second in the Atlantic 10 Conference and earned an NIT berth.
Preceding his time at Rhode Island, Murray spent two seasons (2011-13) as an assistant coach at Towson under Pat Skerry. In 2012-13, he helped Towson orchestrate one of college basketball’s greatest turnarounds as the Tigers set an NCAA record for the best one-season improvement, rising from a one-win campaign in 2011-12 to an 18-13 mark and a second-place finish in the CAA in 2012-13. He was an integral part in attracting the top-rated recruiting class in the CAA for 2012-13, including 2013 and 2014 CAA Player of the Year and former Utah Jazz forward Jerrelle Benimon.
Murray was an assistant coach for the 2010-11 season under Hurley at Wagner College in Staten Island, N.Y. In the 2009-10 season, Murray served as a graduate assistant on the AriÂzona staff under former Xavier head coach Sean Miller, while working on his master’s degree in educational psychology. MurÂray broke into the collegiate coaching field as the director of basketball operations at Quinnipiac in the 2007-08 season.
A native of Palisades, N.Y., Murray earned a degree in sociology from Fairfield in 2007. He and his wife Kara, have two sons: Â Luke, Jr., born in October 2017; and Cash William, born in September 2019.
