USF Hires Chris Mack to be the Men's Basketball Head Coach
Rob Higgins and the Bulls find their guy.
The South Florida Bulls hired Chris Mack as the program’s 16th head coach on Wednesday.
Mack brings 15 years of head coaching experience to the Bulls. USF will be the fourth different school where Mack has roamed the sidelines.
He brings a 323-153 record to the Bay Area. Mack has nine NCAA Tournament appearances in his 15 years as a head coach.
Mack’s most successful tenure was at Xavier. He spent nine seasons as the head coach of the Musketeers and led them to eight NCAA Tournament appearances.
He succeeded at Xavier in multiple conferences, first in the Atlantic 10, where Mack won conference coach of the year in the 2010-11 season. He advanced to the Sweet 16 twice while the team was in the A-10, in 2010 and 2012.
Mack sustained his success when the Musketeers moved to the Big East in the 2013-14 season. He reached two more Sweet 16s in 2015 and 2017. He was named National Coach of the Year in 2016. In the 2017-18 season, Mack’s team went 29-6 and secured the school’s first Big East regular-season title and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
In March 2018, Mack was hired at Louisville Cardinals men’s basketball to replace Rick Pitino following a series of scandals that led to his firing.
Mack’s tenure at Louisville started strong. He led the Cardinals to a 20-14 record and an NCAA Tournament appearance in his first season. In the 2019-20 season, the Cardinals were ranked No. 1 in the AP poll in December and finished 24-7 and second in the ACC. However, the postseason was canceled due to COVID-19.
The pandemic brought Mack’s momentum at Louisville to a halt. He posted a 19-15 record over the next two seasons. To compound the on-court struggles, Mack was suspended for the first six games of the 2021-22 season by the school for failing to follow school policies while handling an extortion attempt by former assistant coach Dino Gaudio. Mack and Louisville mutually agreed to part ways before the end of the season.
Afterward, Mack took two years off from coaching before accepting the head coaching position at Charleston Cougars in 2024. He posted a 45-20 record in two seasons with the Cougars.
Mack will be USF’s fifth head coach in as many years. The Bulls have won two American Conference regular-season titles in the past three seasons after going without one in the program’s first 52 years. They accomplished the feat under two different head coaches, Amir Abdur-Rahim and Bryan Hodgson.
Mack and USF will now turn their focus to building a coaching staff and next year’s roster. The transfer portal opens April 7, and the high school signing period begins April 15.