Metropolitan State University of Denver Men’s basketball head coach Michael Bahl will be adding three assistant coaches for the 2017-18 season.
Lucas Gabriel will join Bahl after serving three years as head assistant coach for the Chico State men’s basketball team. He was also an assistant coach at Chico State from 2008-10. In between his Chico State coaching stints, Gabriel served as the head assistant coach at Fresno City College from 2010-13 as well as head Assistant coach at Nebraska’s Bellevue from 2013-14.
During the summer of 2016, Gabriel spent a month in China serving as Associate Head Coach for the Chinese International All-Star Team.
Gabriel played for Northern Arizona University where he helped secure back-to-back regular season Big Sky Conference championships as well as a National Invitational Tournament (NIT) appearance in 2006. Gabriel graduated from Northern Arizona University in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in speech communications. He earned his master’s degree in education from Chico State in 2010.
Jamal McClerkin is no stranger to MSU Denver basketball. McClerkin played at MSU Denver from 2012-14. In the 2012-13 season, he played in 34 games with four starts at guard, helping MSU Denver to the national title game and the RMAC regular season and tournament championships while averaging 2.4 points and 1.6 rebound. As a senior, McClerkin earned third team all-RMAC, leading the Roadrunners to the RMAC regular season, tournament championships and the semifinals of the NCAA tournament. He started 33 of 34 games at guard and averaged 7.3 points, 3.1 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.0 steals. Prior to being a Roadrunner, McClerkin played two seasons at Moorpark College in Moorpark, California.
McClerkin played professionally in Austria for Asko Villach Raiders from 2014-15 and BBU Salzburg in 2015.
Kenny Tripp joins the Roadrunners after serving as a graduate assistant for the men’s basketball program at Regis University. Prior to Regis, Tripp was a student manager with the University of Nevada.
Tripp earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Management from the University of Nevada. This past spring he earned his M.B.A. with an emphasis in Strategic Management at Regis University.
