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Mike Magpayo has been promoted to assistant coach and Kevin Smith has been named assistant coach at Campbell University, head men’s basketball coach Kevin McGeehan announced.
Magpayo joined the Fighting Camels in the summer of 2014 as director of player development after spending four seasons on the staff at Columbia University. Smith comes to Buies Creek after serving two years as director of basketball operations at his alma mater, the University of Richmond.
“Mike came to us with a ton of experience, having served as assistant coach at Columbia,” said McGeehan. “It’s always nice to hire someone who has been on the road, recruited and scouted at the Division I level. It was a natural fit for Mike to move into the assistant coaching role.”
In his first year with the Camel program, Magpayo helped guide a club that ranked among the nation’s top 40 in 3-point field goals made (28th, 8.2 per game) and attempted (40th, 736). He also helped the team improve its defensive rebounding figures nearly 200 spots in the national rankings, including a stint among the nation’s top-20 in the category.
Curtis Phillips was named to the Big South all-freshman team and Andrew Ryan was selected for the Big South all-academic team.
Magpayo helped guide Campbell to a 4-0 record against Belgian and Irish club teams during the Camels’ August 2015 European tour.
“Mike adds a tremendous and creative basketball mind to our staff,” said McGeehan. “He was integral in bringing statistical analysis to our program last year and helping us incorporate it into both games and practices, with a focus on rebounding, which clearly had a huge impact in our improvement over the previous season.”
During Magpayo’s tenure at Columbia, the Lions program enjoyed the most successful 4-year run in the program’s history, culminating in a 21-win campaign in 2014, the most basketball wins at the school in 40 years.
Magpayo spent two seasons at Columbia as assistant coach and two as director of operations. He was responsible for scheduling for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons. In his first year with the program, Magpayo created the infrastructure for Coach Kyle Smith’s detailed and complicated “moneyball”-type statistics program that was implemented daily. He helped build databases for recruiting as well as creating the platform for the most successful prospect camp in the Ivy League over the last three years.
During the 2013-14 season, Columbia won seven of the nine games in which Magpayo prepared the scouting report, and the team won more than 60 percent of games he scouted over three years.
In addition to scouting and scheduling, Magpayo was responsible for coaching team rebounding last year and Columbia finished as the fourth-best defensive rebounding team in the country. As recruiting coordinator, he recruited All-Ivy League guard Maodo Lo from Germany, and also two of the team’s top freshmen in 7-foot-1 Conor Voss and Luke Petrasek.
Prior to his stint at Columbia, Magpayo ran a multi-million dollar real estate firm in California. However, he was always passionate about coaching and coached high school basketball for 10 years starting during his undergraduate days at UC Santa Barbara (class of 2001) until 2010. Magpayo’s coaching stops included Laguna Blanca High School, Redondo Union High School, Newport Harbor High School and Aliso Niguel High School.
“I have grown to love the Campbell community and all the people associated with our basketball program,” said Magpayo. “The support and resources provided to us are top notch. I am looking forward to this awesome opportunity to build Campbell Basketball into a premier program in the Big South.”
Smith spent the last two years on the staff at Richmond, where he helped lead the Spiders to the quarterfinals of the 2015 post-season NIT. UR went 2-1 against ranked opponents last season, improving to 12-12 against the Top 25 since 2008.
“I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to coach ‘Smitty,'” said McGeehan, who spent eight years on the Richmond staff before accepting the head coaching job at Campbell in April 2013. “He has an incredible amount of positive energy, is incredibly bright and grounded, and his enthusiasm is infectious.”
A three-year starter during his undergraduate days, Smith helped lead the Spiders to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments, back-to-back top-25 finishes, the 2011 Atlantic 10 Championship and 2011 NCAA Sweet 16. The Murfreesboro, Tenn., native was named to the A-10 all-defensive team as a senior.
“Kevin walked into Richmond and seized his opportunity,” said McGeehan. “A lot of guys here at Campbell could look at and benefit from his approach. He was committed to his team and was willing to sacrifice for others, to make the extra pass and do the little things that help you win.”
Smith went on to play professional basketball after graduating from Richmond in May 2011. He spent the 2011-12 season with the Takamatsu Five Arrows (Japan) and the 2012-13 campaign with Albacomp (Hungary).
“The situation here at Campbell is perfect for a young coach who wants to learn and add value to the program,” said Smith. “Coach McGeehan has a great basketball mind, with which I’m very familiar, and I believe people work best in comfortable surroundings. The feel this community has for the University and its athletic program is conducive to success, and I was blown away by how nice the facilities are when I visited.”
http://campbell.prestosports.com/sports/mbkb/2015-16/releases/20150909n90ae9
Photo Courtesy Campbell Athletics
