With 415 career wins and 13 postseason trips as a head coach to his credit, Rick Stansbury is the 15th head men's basketball coach at Western Kentucky University. Stansbury was hired to lead the WKU program on March 28, 2016.
Stansbury has led the Hilltoppers to four 20-win seasons and three Conference USA Tournament title game appearances during his tenure.
The Hilltoppers have 11 wins over Power Five teams since the start of the 2017-18 season, including a 3-4 record against ranked Power Five teams. Among those 20 games, 16 of them have been away from Diddle Arena: four home games, eight true road games and eight-neutral site games.
WKU is just one of 17 teams in the country – less than 5% of all Division I teams – to win at least 19 games in each of the last five seasons, averaging 21+ wins per season in that same time frame.
Between 2017-18 and 2021-22, Western Kentucky won more Division I games than any other team in Conference USA. The Hilltoppers have also won more C-USA games than any other team in the league in the last five years.
In the 2022-23 season, Stansbury led the team to a 17-15 record with an 8-12 mark in C-USA action. The head coach missed the first nine games of league play due to a health matter.
In Stansbury’s sixth season at the helm, WKU posted a 19-13 record, winning nine of its last 10 regular season conference games to earn a bye in the C-USA Tournament. The Hilltoppers added two more Power Five wins with victories over Ole Miss on a neutral court and Louisville at home, just one week apart from one another.
The Hilltoppers battled through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21 to finish 21-8 and win the Conference USA East Division championship while also boasting the top winning percentage in the league. It was WKU’s first regular season title since 2009. Other highlights included wins over Memphis and Alabama, another trip to the C-USA title game and a second-round appearance in the NIT.
WKU went 20-10 under Stansbury's guidance in 2019-20 and was set to be the No. 2 seed in the 2020 Conference USA Tournament before it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the 2018-19 season, the Hilltoppers finished 20-14 and earned the No. 2 seed in C-USA. WKU sold out of general season tickets for the first time since E.A. Diddle Arena opened in 1963 and averaged 5,809 fans per game, the highest average attendance since the venue's renovation in 2002.
In Stansbury's second season in 2017-18, the Hilltoppers finished 27-11 – their most wins since the 2007-08 season and the most wins in the state of Kentucky that year – and advanced to the semifinals of the NIT for the first time since 1954. WKU finished the season 4-2 against Power 5 conference teams and was one of four teams in the nation – including the only non-Power 5 – to register wins over opponents from each of the ACC, SEC, Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences.
The season was the 10th in WKU history with at least 27 wins, and the 27 victories tied for the most in a season for Stansbury, who also won 27 games in 2001-02 at Mississippi State.
In Stansbury's six seasons at the helm, the Hilltoppers are a combined 71-18 inside E.A. Diddle Arena. Stansbury has never registered less than 10 home wins in a season as a head coach. He has a 79.8% winning percentage overall in home games at the helm, including an 86.1% clip in nonconference contests.
Stansbury, a Battletown, Ky., native and Campbellsville University Class of 2003 Hall of Famer, came to The Hill following two years at 2015-16 Southeastern Conference regular season champion Texas A&M, which included a run to the 2016 NCAA Sweet 16.
In his 36 seasons as a head coach or an assistant coach, Stansbury's teams have gone to the postseason 20 times, with Top 5 seeds in the NCAA Tournament in 2016 (3), 2004 (2), 2003 (5), 2002 (3), 1996 (5) and 1995 (5) and in the NIT in 2021 (4), 2018 (4), 2012 (4), 2010 (1), and 2007 (1).
The veteran head coach made his name over a 22-year run at Mississippi State, including the final 14 as head coach (1999-2012), where he compiled a career record of 293-166 (.638), led the Bulldogs to the postseason 11 times – with six NCAA appearances – and became Mississippi State's all-time wins leader in the process.
In his two seasons in College Station, working for head coach Billy Kennedy, Stansbury helped the Aggie coaching staff sign a consensus top-10 recruiting class, a class regarded as one of the best in school history, in 2015. In the 2015-16 campaign, with Stansbury serving as associate head coach, the Aggies set a school record for wins with 28 after a 21-12 campaign and third-place SEC finish in his first season. Texas A&M's run to the Sweet 16 was the deepest the Aggies have advanced in the tournament in program history.
During Stansbury's final 10 years leading Mississippi State, only Kentucky won more SEC championships than his eight, and over his entire 14-year run at the helm, only Kentucky and Florida won more games. His 293 career victories were the 10th-most in SEC history. The Bulldogs won the SEC tournament in 2002 and 2009, the overall SEC championship in 2004 and dominated the league's Western Division during Stansbury's tenure, winning the side in 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008 and 2010.
His teams were also postseason regulars, appearing in the NCAA Tournament or NIT in 11 of his 14 seasons as MSU's head coach, including trips to the NCAA Tournament in four consecutive seasons (2002-2005) and consecutive appearances in 2008 and 2009 with NIT trips in 1999, 2001, 2007, 2010 and 2012. Including his time as an assistant, Mississippi State went to the postseason 15 times in 22 seasons.
Seven Bulldogs earned All-America honors, 23 were named All-SEC (11 first teamers), and he posted 20 or more wins in 10 seasons during his 14-year run as head coach. Prior to Stansbury taking over as head coach, MSU had just seven postseason tournament appearances and won at least 20 games just seven times in the school's previous 86 years of basketball competition.
Stansbury has been a winner in every capacity.
Off the court, Stansbury's program graduated players at a rate never before seen at Mississippi State. Over his time as head coach, only Vanderbilt had a higher graduation rate in the SEC, and the Bulldogs were third in the SEC with 41 academic honorees in 14 years. Fans also came out in droves in Starkville to watch Stansbury's Bulldogs play. Of the Top 30 most attended games in MSU history, 26 came during Stansbury's run as head coach including all of the Top 10. He was the only coach in MSU history to average more than 10,000 fans per game in SEC play (2003-04/10,209), and his Bulldogs played in front of an average of over 7,000 fans per night in six of his 14 seasons as head coach.
Stansbury also brings to The Hill a national reputation of success as evidenced by his 2004 SEC Associated Press Coach of the Year, finalist for National Coach of the Year, and District 17 NABC Coach of the Year awards. During the 2003-04 season, Stansbury's Bulldogs ranked as high as No. 4 in the AP poll and finished No. 8 that year, their third consecutive Top 25 finish in the final AP poll.
As a recruiter, Stansbury is no stranger to sending players to the NBA ranks. Since 1996, Stansbury has helped guide nine players to the NBA, including Erick Dampier, the 10th overall pick in the 1996 Draft. The number includes WKU’s own Charles Bassey, the program’s first draft pick since 2010. Bassey was drafted in the second round by the Philadelphia 76ers as the 53rd overall pick. Other pros under Stansbury’s tutelage include Mario Austin, Derrick Zimmerman, Jarvis Varnado and Rodney Hood.
Stansbury's WKU recruiting class for 2018-19 was ranked No. 19 in the country by Rivals and No. 27 by 247Sports. His 2017-18 class was ranked in the top 10 nationally by every major recruiting outlet and was the program's first top-25 class in the modern recruiting era.
WKU was one of nine programs with back-to-back top-20 recruiting classes as ranked by Rivals in 2017 and 2018, along with Duke, Kentucky, UCLA, Oregon, Kansas, North Carolina, Texas and Michigan State.
NBA scouts have always had their eyes on his programs. WKU hosted the first two preseason Pro Days in program history in 2018 and 2019, with more than 20 NBA scouts in attendance and double-digit scouts at most games.
Over a nine-year period in Starkville (2003-11), Stansbury signed five different top-20 recruiting classes. His 2005 class was rated the sixth-best nationally by Rivals.com while his final class in the spring of 2011 was No. 12 nationally by the outlet. The Class of 2015 at Texas A&M was rated No. 8 nationally by Rivals.com.
Before going to Starkville, Stansbury spent six seasons as an assistant at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn. Working alongside the late Lake Kelly, APSU recorded three consecutive winning seasons including an Ohio Valley Conference tournament championship and NCAA Tournament second-round berth in 1986-87.
His 16-year career as an assistant prior to the MSU head coaching post began at his alma mater, Campbellsville, during the 1981-82 season as he worked toward earning a double major in business and physical education. He then moved on to work for Randy Vernon at Cumberland in Williamsburg, where he earned his master's in Business Education. In 1983-84, the team went 31-5 and earned a second-round appearance in the NAIA Tournament. In October 1999, Stansbury was honored by the Campbellsville Alumni Association as a proud recipient of the school's Distinguished Alumni Award.
Stansbury's connection to The Hill goes back well before his hiring as head coach to his great uncle, Edgar B. Stansbury, a 1994 WKU Athletics Hall of Famer as a three-sport athlete (baseball, basketball, football), football assistant coach under W.L. "Gander" Terry, and Director of Athletics in 1946 after serving his country in World War II. The concourse inside E.A. Diddle Arena is named in E.B. Stansbury's honor.
Stansbury is married to the former Meo Mellen of Roanoke, Va. The couple has three sons, Isaac, Noah and Luke.
THE RICK STANSBURY FILE
PERSONAL
Born: December 23, 1959 (62 years old)
Hometown: Battletown, Ky.
High School: Meade County, `77
College: Campbellsville, `81
Wife: Meo
Children: Isaac, Noah, Luke
COACHING CAREER
1981-82: Campbellsville (student assistant)
1983-84: Cumberland (graduate assistant)
1985-90: Austin Peay (assistant coach)
1990-94: Mississippi State (assistant coach)
1994-98: Mississippi State (associate head coach)
1998-2012: Mississippi State (head coach)
2014-15: Texas A&M (assistant coach)
2015-16: Texas A&M (associate head coach)
2016-23: WKU (head coach)
CAREER ACCOLADES
Championships: Conference USA East Division Championship (2021); SEC Western Conference Championships (2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2010); SEC Tournament Champions (2002, 2009); Overall SEC Champion (2004)
Postseason Experience As a head coach: NCAA (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009), NIT (1999, 2001, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2018, 2021); As an assistant: NCAA (1987, 1991, 1995 - Sweet 16, 1996 - Final Four, 2016 - Sweet 16), NIT (1990, 1994)
Awards: SEC Coach of the Year (2004), District 17 NABC Coach of the Year (2004)
