Texas Tech head coach Grant McCasland has announced the hiring of assistant coaches Achoki Moikobu and Matt Braeuer who are joining him from the North Texas staff which won 31 games and the 2023 National Invitation Tournament championship.
“Both of them have been instrumental in our success,” McCasland said. “We’ve always recruited, coached and tried to love our teams together as a staff. Their hearts are invested in our program to help our players have success on the court and as men. I’m excited to have Coach B and AC join me here and know that they are going to help us achieve great things.”
Braeuer was on McCasland’s staff at UNT for five seasons, while Moikobu was an assistant coach for the Mean Green one season. UNT established a new program record by going 31-7 and completed the 2022-23 season by knocking off UAB to secure the NIT title. The Mean Green led the nation by limiting opponents to only 55.8 points per game, were sixth nationally by holding teams to 39.1 percent shooting, and ran off postseason victories over Alcorn State, Sam Houston, Oklahoma State and Wisconsin before the 68-61 win over UAB for the championship.
In his five seasons with UNT, Braeuer helped guide the Mean Green to a 115-47 record along with back-to-back Conference USA championships (2020 and 2021) and the program’s first NCAA Tournament victory with a win over Purdue in the 2021 NCAA Tournament. A Belton, Texas native, Braeuer was a three-year starting point guard at Wichita State from 2004-08. Braeuer came to the Mean Green from the College of Charleston, where he had served for two years and helped lead the Cougars to back-to-back 25-win seasons and Colonial Athletic Association regular-season and tournament titles.
“He is a relentless recruiter with a brilliant basketball mind,” McCasland said of Braeuer. “He had success as a player and had coached at the highest levels. He also has a great feel for what winning looks like.”
He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Wichita State and would spend one year at Midland College from 2010-11 where he helped lead the Chaparrals to a 33-4 record and to the NJCAA Division I national championship game. Braeuer would continue his career at the University of Maryland, working under head coach Mark Turgeon as the video coordinator and then at Sam Houston from 2013-16. He helped lead Sam Houston to the Southland Conference tournament championship game in back-to-back seasons and to seasons that resulted in 24 and 26 victories.
As a player at Wichita State, Braeuer ranks in the top 15 all-time in career three-pointers made (130) and career assists (308) for the Shockers. During his playing time at Wichita, the Shockers advanced to the Sweet Sixteen and earned a top-10 national ranking. Braeuer played under his father Ed Braeuer at Belton High, where as a senior, he was named a Texas Class 5A First Team All-State, First Team All-Region selection and earned District 13-5A Most Valuable Player.
Moikobu joins the Red Raider program after prior collegiate experience at Drake and Grand Canyon University. At Drake, Moikobu helped lead the Bulldogs to a 13-5 Missouri Valley Conference record and a MVC Tournament title game appearance. Prior to Drake, Moikobu spent one season under Bryce Drew at Grand Canyon in 2020-21 as the Director of Recruiting.
He helped assemble a roster that transformed GCU from a 13-17 record to 17-7 and claim a Western Athletic Conference regular season league title. Grand Canyon then won the 2021 WAC Tournament championship and earned its first Division I NCAA Tournament berth. With Moikobu on staff in 2020-21, GCU featured the nation’s second-best field goal percentage defense (37.6 percent) and the nation’s 15th-best offensive field goal percentage (49.2 percent). Moikobu also worked six seasons as a postgraduate head coach at Sunrise Christian Academy in Bel Air, Kansas. At Sunrise, he coached 28 future Division I players.
“Coach AC has great experience as a head coach in prep school and a great assistant coach for us,” McCasland said of Moikobu. “He does a great job of developing and building relationships. He is as authentic as it gets. I think he has a tremendous overall perspective of the game and is really special in individual workouts because he understands how to get the best out of players on a daily basis.”
A Seattle, Washington native, Moikobu played at Fort Hays State where he graduated in 2015. In his two seasons at Fort Hays State, he made 91 career 3-pointers and shot 47.7 percent from deep.
Moikobu and Braeuer are the initial hirings for McCasland who was named the 19th head coach in Texas Tech program history on March 31. McCasland spent six seasons at UNT where he compiled a 135-65 (.675) record to boost his career head coaching record to 211-89.
Texas Tech has advanced to four of the past five NCAA Tournaments, including reaching the 2018 Elite 8, 2019 NCAA Championship Final, 2021 NCAA Tournament Second Round and 2022 Sweet 16. The Red Raiders have a 117-22 home record over the past eight seasons and are coming off a year where the program averaged 13,222 fans per game which ranked No. 1 throughout the state of Texas, third in the Big 12 and 21st nationally.
