Danny Kaspar comes to Texas State after serving the last 13 seasons as head coach at Stephen F. Austin, where he guided the Lumberjacks to a 246-193 record that included five 20-win seasons in the last six years. He has an overall career record of 465-193 in his 21 seasons as a head coach.

In the end the relationships with all the high school coaches in Texas to the other AAU coaches and everyone in general was what we were really looking for,” said Athletics Director Larry Teis. “We talked to former players, mainly Jeff Foster who we relied on to help us look at some candidates. Jeff did a great job, and his number one pick was Danny Kaspar. Gregg Popovich from the San Antonio Spurs is very high on Danny and his coaching abilities, which really helped. In the end, in the state of Texas, nobody has won more games in the last six years than Danny Kaspar.

Kaspar was named the 2012-13 Southland Conference Coach of the Year after leading SFA to a 27-5 overall record, its third Southland Conference championship in the last six years and a berth to the NIT. It marks the second time he was named SLC Coach of the Year. He also earned the honor in 2007-08.

I’m very excited to be given this opportunity to coach the men’s basketball program at Texas State,” said Kaspar. “It’s got great potential and I’ve always thought of it as a place that can produce frequent championships for someone who is willing to work hard and put a lot of effort in the job.

He will be presented the NABC District 23 Coach of the Year on Friday at the NCAA Final Four and is a finalist for the Hugh Durham Award as the nation’s top Mid-Major head coach.

Stephen F. Austin’s winning percentage of 84.4 percent this season is fourth among NCAA Division I teams entering the Final Four. The Lumberjacks’ 27 wins included victories over teams from the Big XII (Oklahoma), Big West (Long Beach State), Conference USA (Tulsa), and Sun Belt Conference (Florida International).

SFA leads the nation in scoring defense after allowing just 51.2 points per game. The Lumberjacks also were the best in the nation in scoring defense in 2010-11 with 56.7 points per game and had the third-best average in 2011-12 with 54.4.

This season, SFA ranks seventh in field goal percentage defense with 38.0 percent and 18th in three-point field goal percentage defense.

Offensively, SFA ranks 29th in field goal percentage with 46.8 percent and is among the top 24 teams in assists. The Lumberjacks are sixth in scoring margin after winning games by an average of 13.6 points and are among the top 13 teams in rebounding margin with a 6.9 advantage.

Kaspar led SFA to back-to-back Southland Conference championships in 2007-08 and 2008-09.

SFA finished the 2007-08 season with a 26-6 record, marking the best mark in the school’s 25-year history as NCAA Division I program and earned the team a berth to the NIT.

The 2007-08 league title was the Lumberjacks’ first-ever Southland Conference championship and marked the first league title for the program since SFA won the Gulf Star Conference in the 1986-87 season, under Harry Miller, one of Kaspar’s mentors.

In 2008-09, Kaspar led SFA to the SLC Tournament championship to earn the school’s first NCAA Tournament berth in school history after winning its second consecutive SLC title with a 13-3 league record. Overall, the Lumberjacks compiled a 24-7 record.

During his tenure at SFA, Kaspar turned the Lumberjack program from an also-ran in the Southland Conference to one of the league’s most consistent winners. He guided SFA to the SLC Tournament in nine of his 13 seasons as coach, including five trips to the tournament championship game.

The program Kaspar leaves behind at SFA is very different from the one he inherited. During the two seasons prior his arrival, the Lumberjacks had just four and six wins, respectively. Beginning in his second season, the ‘Jacks became a competitive force in the SLC.

That year, SFA finished the regular season with a 13-14 record in the regular season, was fifth in the SLC standings with a 10-10 league record and qualified for the SLC tournament for the first time in five years. The fifth-place finish was the best finish in league standings since the 1996-97 campaign.

The following year, the Lumberjacks posted their first 20-win season since 1986-87 with a 21-8 overall record and a 16-4 league mark to finish in second place. The team advanced to the finals of the SLC Tournament, both firsts since SFA had joined the SLC.

In the 2003-04 campaign, the Lumberjacks once again won 21 games and made their second straight SLC tournament finals appearance. The second straight 20-plus-win season marked the first time since the mid-1980s the Lumberjacks have put together two straight seasons with 20 or more wins.

SFA posted a 17-12 mark in 2005-06, including a 9-7 fourth-place finish in Southland Conference play. The Lumberjacks entered the SLC Tournament as the No. 4 seed and defeated McNeese State, 72-70, in the first round, advancing to the semifinals for the third time in four years.

Kaspar served as an assistant coach at SFA under Miller from 1983 through the 1986 seasons. During his three seasons as an assistant, the Lumberjacks recorded two 20-win seasons, won 16 games in the other season, and never finished lower than third in the conference.

A 1978 graduate of the University of North Texas, Kaspar is no stranger to winning. He spent nine seasons as the head coach at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. In his tenure, Incarnate Word posted an overall record of 219-52, which was the best record for any four-year Texas institution during the 1990s. In 1999, The Sporting News named him National Small College Coach of the Year.

His teams at Incarnate Word posted nine straight 20-win seasons, including five seasons where his teams won 25 or more games in a single campaign. Kaspar’s Incarnate Word teams also won or shared five regular season conference titles as well as four conference tournament titles. He was tabbed the Heart of Texas Conference Coach of the Year four times during that span.

Prior to becoming a head coach, Kaspar served as an assistant for some of the legends of college basketball coaching. In addition to working under Miller, he also was on the staffs of Billy Tubbs, Gene Iba and Dr. Gerald Stockton.

During his one season with Tubbs at Lamar, the Cardinals won the Southland Conference title and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.

In 31 years as a collegiate coach, Kaspar has only been associated with six teams with losing records. In two of those seasons, the teams were one win away from .500 records or better.

Kaspar and his wife, Deborah, have a daughter, Nicole, who is a student at Texas State.

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