Meet Isaac Brown, the longtime assistant who’ll lead WSU basketball as interim coach
Isaac Brown is finally getting his chance as a head coach.
Brown, 51, was promoted to interim head coach of the Wichita State men’s basketball team Tuesday morning following the resignation of Gregg Marshall, the coach who hired Brown at WSU in 2014.
After 19 seasons as a Division I assistant coach, Brown will be in charge of a program for the first time. The Pascagoula, Mississippi native is the first Black head coach in WSU men’s basketball history.
“I know this is a difficult time for our kids, but we will come together as a team and continue to compete,” Brown said in a release on Tuesday. “We have a great group of kids and staff, and we will work hard each day to represent our school and our city.”
Brown has been leading WSU’s practices since Nov. 9, when Marshall’s absence from the team began.
With the Shockers’ 2020-21 season beginning in just eight days when they play Utah State in the opening round of the Crossover Classic on Nov. 25 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, WSU athletic director Darron Boatright said in a statement on Tuesday that promoting from within was WSU’s best option.
“What the program needs right now is stability,” Boatright said. “Isaac has been here for seven years and has good rapport and relationships with the players and staff. I think he is the natural choice.”
In the six seasons since Brown arrived, the Shockers have won 75.8% of their games (157-50), played in four NCAA Tournaments and won the regular-season championship in the Missouri Valley Conference in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
Brown is universally respected by former and current players and from his peers. Earlier this year, Stadium polled at least 20 coaches in the American Athletic Conference and Brown received the second-most votes as the top assistant in the conference.
“Isaac is a very hard-working, knowledgeable and loyal assistant coach,” Marshall said at the time. “He is definitely prepared to run his own program.”
When Stadium reported last Tuesday that Marshall and WSU were expected to part ways by the end of the week, former player Rashard Kelly, who was with the Shockers from 2014-18, said he wanted to see Brown as the team’s head coach moving forward.
“Somebody relay this message to higher authority,” Kelly tweeted on Nov. 11. “Give Isaac Brown the head coaching job at Wichita State and watch the atmosphere be more electric than when Marshall had it.”
At WSU, Brown had carved out a role as Marshall’s most-trusted lieutenant in recent seasons. He has proven to be a relentless recruiter for the Shockers and his deep ties to the Southern region of the United States made him a valuable recruiter.
Before he arrived at WSU in 2014, Brown has served as an assistant coach at Louisiana Tech (2011-14), Arkansas State (2010-11), Arkansas (2007-10) and South Alabama (2002-07).
Brown has helped lead those five programs to a combined 11 20-win seasons, eight conference regular-season titles and 10 postseason appearances. Along the way, he’s coached 58 all-conference selections and six NBA players.
This story was originally published November 17, 2020 at 1:42 PM.
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