After just one season as the graduate assistant coach for the Utah Valley University men’s basketball team, Patrick Amico has been hired as the head assistant coach at Snow College.
“Patrick is one of the most passionate, giving, selfless guys in this business,” said Utah Valley head coach Mark Pope. “He did an unbelievable job for us here at Utah Valley in a lot of ways that we are seeing now and in ways that will forever go on unseen. He has got a great future in this business. He’s going to become a big time recruiter and a great coach on the floor. He’s going to move up really fast. I’m really grateful for the work he did here for us and am excited to see him grow as a coach.”
Amico helped the Utah Valley coaching staff take the Wolverines to new heights during the 2016-17 season as the team went 17-17 overall and earned a bid to play in the College Basketball Invitational. At the CBI, UVU picked up its first-ever postseason national tournament victories with a 74-49 win at Georgia Southern in the first round and an 85-79 quarterfinal win at Rice. The Wolverines were the only team in the 2017 CBI to win a pair of road wins en route to the team’s final four setback at Wyoming.
Amico and the UVU staff helped the Wolverines earn the No. 4 seed in the WAC Tournament in 2017 where the team defeated fifth-ranked Seattle U, 65-53, before dropping a historic 81-80 quadruple overtime decision to top-seeded CSU Bakersfield in the semifinals. The game is the first-ever quadruple overtime game in WAC Tournament history.
Utah Valley picked up two of its biggest road wins in program history during Amico’s tenure at UVU. The Wolverines defeated crosstown rival BYU, 114-101, at the Marriott Center in Provo and then snapped New Mexico State’s 39-game conference home win streak with an 84-72 win over the Aggies in Las Cruces.
“My time at Utah Valley was honestly the best year of my life in the game of basketball,” said Amico. “I will forever be grateful to coach Pope and his staff for everything they taught me. It was hard to leave because I felt like I had become part of the UVU family. I want to thank everyone at UVU for such a great experience. Hopefully, I can take the things that I learned from coach Pope and his staff and help implement them here at Snow.”
Amico now heads to Snow College where he will be the top assistant coach under head coach Robert Nielson who led the Badgers to a SWAC title last season. As Nielson also serves as the athletic director at the school, Amico will carry a large load of the coaching duties.
http://gouvu.com/news/2017/8/10/mens-basketball-amico-hired-as-top-assistant-coach-at-snow-college.aspx
