Ricky Muench has been promoted from Director of Basketball Operations to Assistant Coach at Loyola Marymount. LMU released the following announcement on Twitter earlier today:
Muench’s Bio from LMU:
Ricky Muench reunited with Head Coach Stan Johnson as LMU’s Director of Basketball Operations. Muench joined the Lions in the spring of 2020, with the 2023-24 season being his fourth on the Bluff.
In Muench’s third season at LMU, the Lions beat Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s, and BYU all in the same season, with two of those wins coming with the Zags and Gaels holding top-15 rankings. The Lions earned the highest ranked win in program history on Jan. 19, 2023, by defeating the sixth-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs in Spokane and ending GU’s 75-game home win streak, run of 93 straight wins over unranked teams, and 25 consecutive wins over the Lions. The Lions beat their second nationally ranked team on Feb. 9, 2023, as LMU defended home court and beat 15th-ranked Saint Mary’s at Gersten Pavilion becoming the first LMU basketball team with multiple wins over top-15 programs and multiple wins over ranked teams for the first time in over a decade. In total, LMU beat four NCAA Tournament teams in 2022-23, with LMU defeating both Nevada and Grand Canyon in consecutive games in the non-conference. The Lions also won the Jamaica Classic in November of 2022 with wins over Georgetown and Wake Forest in Montego Bay.
LMU won 19 games in Muench’s third year, the third-most since 1990. By the numbers, 2022-23 saw achievements that few LMU team had done in over three decades. The Lions won 10 non-conference games for just the third time since 1988 and won nine WCC contests for the second time since 1991. The success in conference play resulted in a fourth-place finish and LMU’s first double-bye into the WCC Tournament in 11 seasons.
Cam Shelton was named to the All-WCC First Team after leading the WCC in overall scoring at 21.23 ppg and scoring in conference games at 23.31 ppg. Shelton had the most 30-point games in the WCC in 2022-23 and became the first LMU player since Terrell Lowery in 1992 to score 40-points in a game. Shelton was WCC Player of the Week three times, named as a Lou Henson Award National Player of the Year finalist, and was named the Lou Henson Award National Player of the Week after leading LMU to the win over Gonzaga in Spokane.
Keli Leaupepe was named to the WCC Honorable Mention Team, and both of LMU’s captains, Shelton and Leaupepe, were named to the WCC All-Academic Team. The Lions set another new program-record team GPA in Winter of 2022 and had four players make the Dean’s List that semester.
The 2020-21 season saw meteoric growths across the board for LMU men’s basketball. The Lions finished in the top three of the West Coast Conference standings for the first time since 2005-06. Muench helped guide his team through the COVID-19 pandemic and posted a winning record in the WCC for the first time since 2011-12. LMU has posted a top-100 ranking in the NCAA’s NET, college basketball’s comprehensive metric that takes into account record, quality opponents faced, and game location, among others. LMU’s 95 ranking is the highest NET (or RPI at that time) since the Elite Eight season of 1990.
Prior to joining the Lions, Muench spent the shortened 2019-20 NBA season with the Milwaukee Bucks as a Video & Player Development Assistant. In this role, Muench helped create scouting and video reports on opponents with Milwaukee’s assistant coaches and assisted the coaches with player development by putting players through basketball workouts and organizing development drills.
In four years as an undergrad, Muench worked with Johnson’s Marquette teams as a student manager. By his senior year, Muench was responsible for overseeing all 13 managers and assign tasks based on each individual’s strength and skillset, keeping statistics and analyzing stats for practices and games, and help with the creation of social media content for Marquette’s team Instagram and twitter accounts.
Muench graduated from Marquette in May 2019 with his bachelor of science in mathematics.
