The Western Michigan men’s basketball team announced today that Clayton Bates, a veteran assistant coach that had spent nine years with the Broncos before spending the last two seasons at Wright State, has returned to Kalamazoo to fill the final opening on Steve Hawkins’ coaching staff.

Bates served as an assistant coach to Billy Donlon at Wright State for the past two seasons, helping the Raiders to a 19-14 record in his first season in 2010-11. That season, the Raiders defeated UW-Green Bay in the first round of the Horizon League tournament before falling to the third-seeded Cleveland State Vikings.

Bates is no stranger to the Western Michigan program, having spent a considerable portion of his coaching career as an assistant with the Broncos. Bates’ first stint at Western Michigan lasted nearly a decade, with Bates serving as an assistant coach to Rob McCullum and later Hawkins from 2001-08.

Bates played an important role in the success at WMU while establishing himself as one of the best coaches and top recruiters in the Mid-American Conference. During his first stint at Western Michigan, the Broncos posted four 20-win seasons while advancing to the 2004 NCAA Tournament and the 2003 and 2005 National Invitation Tournament. After spending the 2008-09 season away from coaching, Bates returned to the Broncos and helped Hawkins steer the team to an 18-15 record in 2009-10.

Bates was a key factor in the recruitment and development of a number of WMU’s top contributors in decade, including two MAC Players of the Year (Mike Williams, 2004 and David Kool, 2010) and 2008 CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major All-American Joe Reitz. The Broncos also had great success in the classroom under Bates’ tutelage, as 11 players earned Academic All-MAC honors in his tenure, including Kool and Reitz, who each earned Academic All-American honors.

Bates played at the University of Florida under Lon Kruger and served as an administrative assistant with him at the University of Illinois in 1997 when the Illini advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. After one year at Illinois, Bates returned to his native Florida as an assistant coach at Jacksonville University for the next three years. A former guard, Bates played for the Gator team that appeared in the 1994 Final Four.

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