Texas A&M-Kingsville’s men’s basketball head coach Omar Gonzalez has finalized his coaching staff for the 2023-24 season, naming Carliss Robinson and Chauncey Thomas as assistant coaches on Wednesday afternoon.
Thomas moves into the position after spending the two previous seasons on the Javelina bench as a graduate assistant. In those two seasons, the Javelinas qualified for the NCAA South Central Regional for the first time in consecutive seasons including a 2022-23 campaign that saw the Blue and Gold go 21-12 on the year and 14-8 in Lone Star Conference play winning the East Division.
A TAMUK alum, Thomas spent two years on the Javelina men’s basketball roster, including a senior season in 2019-20 in which he earned an all-conference selection. During that season, Thomas started all 30 games, became the first Javelina to top 100 assists in more than a decade and also led the team in steals. His leadership from the point guard spot helped TAMUK pile up 21 victories, the team’s highest win total since 1995-96 and their 16 LSC wins set a new program record. All that added up to TAMUK’s sixth appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
Robinson comes to Kingsville after most recently serving as an assistant coach on Lee College’s men’s basketball staff as the Navigators compiled a 53-12 overall record during Robinson’s tenure including an appearance in the 2022 NJCAA National Tournament.
Robinson is no stranger to the Coastal Bend area however, having served as Coastal Bend College’s head men’s basketball coach from 2015-2018 leading the program to back-to-back NJCAA Region XIV Tournament appearances.
After moving on from Coastal Bend, Robinson then served as an assistant coach at Salem University in West Virginia from 2019-2021 where he aided the program to an 18-8 record in his first year on staff, a five-win total improvement from the previous season.
