BATON ROUGE — LSU men’s basketball coach Matt McMahon announced on Wednesday that Sacramento State head coach David Patrick would return to Baton Rouge to serve as Associate Head Coach.
Patrick, a well-known collegiate and international coach with over 20 years of experience, joins LSU after two years as head men’s coach at Sacramento State.
“I am incredibly excited to welcome David Patrick and his family to our LSU coaching staff,” stated McMahon. “He is a great basketball coach and an extraordinary recruiter who has contributed to victory at every point along his path. Coach Patrick provides invaluable expertise and accomplishment to our program. He has served as a Division I Head Coach, an assistant coach for the Australian National Team, which won a bronze medal at the 2021 Olympics, and coached in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 and Elite 8 phases.
“I appreciate Coach Patrick’s commitment to player development and relationship-building. Throughout his tenure, he has recruited and developed a number of NBA Draft choices. I’m looking forward to seeing what new ideas, solutions, and excitement he brings to our program. We can’t wait to get started this summer!”
Sacramento State has led the Big Sky Conference in rebound margins the previous two seasons, finishing among the top 25 teams in the country both years. His 2023-24 squad progressed to the conference tournament semifinals, marking the first time the team has won two games in the postseason since its inception in 1996.
Patrick is a top-tier recruiter who helped LSU secure a top-five recruiting class in 2013 and 2015. That 2015 class included No. 1 ranked high school player Ben Simmons, who now plays for the Brooklyn Nets; No. 15 Antonio Blakeney, who has become a star in the Chinese Basketball League; and No. 39 Brandon Sampson, who has carved out a successful professional career and is currently playing in the Canadian league.
Patrick, 48, has recruited 11 NBA players (including seven draft picks, four in the first round) and coached 28 players who have gone on to play professionally, including 19 in the NBA.
Patrick, a Bermuda native who migrated to Australia at the age of ten, chose to go to the United States in 1994 after playing for the Australian Junior National Team. He ended up in Baton Rouge and played his senior year of high school basketball at Chapel Trafton, where he led the team to the state playoffs and was named the Louisiana Player of the Year.
He was named the district MVP, made First Team All-Parish, and was chosen to play in the Louisiana State High School All-Star Game. He also played for Australia’s junior national teams and was selected All-Australian from 1992 to 1994.
It would be with his Trafton high school coach, J. P. Piper, where he would make his start as a collegiate coach after Piper was named Nicholls State’s head coach in 2005-06.
Patrick attended Syracuse University for one season after high school and was a member of the 1996 NCAA Final Four squad, which finished second in the country. He subsequently went to UL-Lafayette, where he played three seasons.
Following a season at Nicholls, he was hired associate head coach at Saint Mary’s, where he spent four years (2006-10). In his final year, the club advanced to the 2010 NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, winning a school record 28 games and the West Coast Conference tournament title. The squad also advanced to the 2008 NCAA Tournament and the 2009 National Invitation Tournament quarterfinals.
After leaving Saint Mary’s, he worked as a player personnel scout for the Houston Rockets for two years before joining Coach Jones’ staff.
After leaving LSU, he spent two seasons at TCU, including a 2017 NIT championship season, before becoming head coach at UC Riverside (2018-20). In 2020, he was a nominee for the Hugh Durham Award, which is presented to the top mid-major coach in the country.
Before joining Sacrament State, he was an associate head coach at Arkansas and Oklahoma for one season each. The 2021 Arkansas team reached the NCAA Tournament Elite 8 and ended 25-7, while the 2022 Oklahoma club went to the NIT Second Round.
He has been an assistant coach for the Australian National Team since 2019, and the Boomers earned bronze in the 2021 Olympics, marking Australia’s first men’s basketball Olympic medal. In 2019, the squad advanced to the FIBA World Cup Final Four, when it defeated the United States for the first time.
Patrick also had a successful four-year professional career as a player overseas, including stints in Spain, England, and Australia. In 2000, he won the NBL Rookie of the Year award with the Canberra Cannons.
