Official: Phelps joins Marquette staff

Had this as a rumor earlier today – it’s now official…

Marquette men’s basketball head coach Steve Wojciechowski has announced the hiring of Mark Phelps as an assistant coach with the program.

Mark Phelps, a veteran coach with 18 seasons of experience at the Division I level and the winningest coach in Drake University history through his first five years, arrives in Milwaukee after spending the 2013-14 campaign as an assistant at Missouri. Phelps joins former Duke star Chris Carrawell, who has hired on April 7, on Wojciechowski’s first-year staff.

“When I started putting my first staff together, one of the priorities was finding an individual with head coaching experience who was also in possession of a strong passion for the game of basketball and I couldn’t be more excited about adding Mark Phelps in that role,” Wojciechowski said. “Mark’s career in collegiate basketball speaks for itself and I had the opportunity to compete against him for a number of years in the ACC and have always respected him as not only a coach, but a person as well.”

A native of Virginia Beach, Va., Phelps guided Drake to a pair of postseason appearances and 77 wins during his five seasons in Des Moines, Iowa. He is credited with leading the Bulldogs to their first postseason win since 1975 and coached Drake to a pair of winning seasons, including an 18-16 record and a top-three finish in the Missouri Valley Conference in 2012.

Phelps, 48, began coaching at the Division I level in 1996 at NC State and has been a part of 13 postseason tournament appearances in his career, including five consecutive NCAA tournament selections with the Wolfpack before becoming the associate head coach under Herb Sendek at Arizona State in 2006.

Phelps spent two years as the associate head coach at ASU following his 10 seasons at N.C. State, and the Sun Devils saw remarkable improvement going from 8-22 his first season to 21-13 and a postseason appearance in year two.

As mentioned, Phelps won more games in his first five seasons than any coach in Drake history. Owning just one NCAA Tournament appearance since 1971 and two postseason bids of any kind since 1981, Phelps helped the Bulldogs advance to the CollegeInsider.com (CIT) twice in his five years (2009 and 2012), including a win over North Dakota in the opening round in 2012. Drake (18-16 overall, 9-9 MVC in 2012) finished third in the final Missouri Valley Conference standings that season and two of his players, Rayvonte Rice and Ben Simons, earned Second Team All-Missouri Valley Conference honors. In addition, three of his final four recruiting classes at Drake were ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 in the league by various recruiting services.

Prior to joining Sendek’s staff in Raleigh, N.C., Phelps was a highly successful high school coach in Virginia. He led Rock Church Academy (1990-94) in his hometown of Virginia Beach, Va., to a 104-41 record and then moved to Atlantic Shores Christian School (1994-96), leading the team to a 44-12 mark.

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