Texas Tech head men’s basketball coach Chris Beard has announced the hiring Ulric Maligi as an assistant coach for the Red Raiders.
An Arlington, Texas native and Howard University graduate, Maligi arrives in Lubbock after three seasons in College Station where he was an assistant coach at Texas A&M. Maligi and the Aggies advanced to the Sweet 16 in the 2017-18 season and he was instrumental in recruiting a Top 25 recruiting class in 2018-19. Along with his experience at Texas A&M, he has coached at Southern Methodist (2012-15), Houston (2010-12), Stephen F. Austin (2007-10) and the University of Texas at Arlington (2006-07). He joins the Red Raiders having 12 years of NCAA Division I coaching experience, six 20-win seasons, five NCAA and NIT postseason appearances and 15 players who he’s coached and/or recruited have reached the NBA.
“I feel extremely humbled and blessed to work with and learn from arguably the best college basketball staff in the country,” Maligi said. “My family and I could not be coming to Texas Tech at a more exciting time. It’s rare in this profession for any coach to work for a reigning National Coach of the Year and a head coach who has sat in the NBA green room back-to-back years. I’m eager to work with all of our players and join the efforts of our entire staff to be fully committed to their development as student-athletes and as men. I cannot wait to win more Big 12 championships and ultimately win a National Championship at Texas Tech. Coach Beard has created an expectation to win big and a championship culture that I’m ecstatic to be a part of.”
Maligi (pronounced: ur-rick mowl-uh-ghee) began his coaching career as the head manager as an undergraduate student at Howard in Washington D.C. where he assisted the coaching staff with film, on-campus recruiting, academic monitoring and a supervisory role of the manager staff. He would return to Texas to coach the Dallas Mustangs AAU program from 2003-06, including coaching Texas Tech football legend Michael Crabtree before beginning his collegiate coaching career at UTA. The list of players he’s coached and/or recruited that have reached the NBA include: Emmanuel Mudiay, Thomas Walkup, Wesley Johnson, Anthony Randolph, Terrel Harris, Danuel House, Jonathon Simmons, Tyler Davis, Semi Ojeyele, Ben Moore, Donald Sloan, Robert Williams, Joe Young, Sterling Brown and Jalen Jones.
Most recently, at Texas A&M (2016-19), his three years were highlighted by helping lead the Aggies to the Sweet 16 in his second season. The Aggies finished the season with 22 victories, including knocking off Providence and North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament first and second rounds. An 86-65 win over North Carolina was the second largest margin of victory for Texas A&M in the tournament and advance the Aggies to the program’s fifth Sweet 16 where they would fall to Michigan. Maligi was an elite recruiter for the Aggies and head coach Billy Kennedy, signing multiple top-100 recruits and securing a Rivals.com Top 25 class in 2019. He had spent one year prior to Texas A&M working as the national scouting director for John Lucas Enterprises in Houston where he helped identify, evaluate and coach talented players from throughout the nation.
From 2012-15, Maligi was an assistant coach for legendary college and professional head coach Larry Brown where he helped in recruiting, scouting and on-court instruction. With Maligi on staff, the Mustangs revived their program by signing a recruiting class that ranked No. 14 nationally. In his second season at SMU, the team went 27-10 and advanced to the NIT championship final at Madison Square Garden. Maligi and the Mustangs knocked off four ranked opponents during the season were ranked for the first time since the 1984-85 season.
Maligi coached at the University of Houston from 2010-12 with former Red Raider head coach James Dickey. In his years at UH, he helped sign a pair of outstanding recruiting classes. The 2011 class included an ESPN top-100 signee that was named to the C-USA All-Freshman team in 2011-12 and All-C-USA first team in 2012-13. The class of 2012 was ranked in the top 20, and included two ESPN top-100 signees.
In June 2011, Maligi joined some of the most talented coaches from across the country for the NCAA and BCA Achieving Coaching Excellence (ACE) Program in Indianapolis. The ACE Program was created to prepare racial and ethnic minority basketball coaches for success as future head coaches. Maligi received training and education in leadership, communication, campus relations, media, community involvement and program management while interacting with current NCAA head coaches, directors of athletics and administrators.
Maligi spent three seasons (2007-10) as an assistant coach at Stephen F. Austin under head coach Danny Kaspar. Maligi helped lead the program to 23 or more wins each season, for a 73-23 (.760) combined record. In 2009, the Lumberjacks made their first NCAA Tournament after winning the Southland Conference Tournament. SFA also reached the NIT in 2008. Before joining SFA, Maligi worked the 2006-07 season as an assistant coach at UT Arlington under head coach Scott Cross.
Maligi earned his bachelor’s degree in exercise physiology from Howard in 2006. He and his wife, Dr. Courtney B. Maligi, were married in 2012.
He joins the Texas Tech program which is coming off advancing to the NCAA National Championship Final and winning the Big 12 regular-season championship. The Red Raiders went 31-7 to amass the winningest season in program history after also advancing to the 2018 NCAA Elite Eight. Beard has led the program to a 76-31 overall record in three seasons and has had two NBA first-round draft picks with Jarrett Culver being selected sixth in the 2019 NBA Draft and Zhaire Smith going 16th in 2018. Tech went 14-4 last season to secure the conference’s regular-season title before making a run to the program’s first Final Four appearance.
https://texastech.com/news/2019/8/9/maligi-joins-mens-basketball-program-as-assistant-coach.aspx
