How would Mike Bibby describe his life since getting his first Division I head coaching gig, at Sacramento State, on March 24?
“I mean, it’s been hectic, it’s a different situation,” Bibby told Hoops HQ with a laugh and an exhale, not necessarily in that order. “We ended up not keeping anybody from the prior team and so I have to go out and get 15 players. So it’s been a non-stop, every-day situation. I get 50 to 60 videos every day of kids. We’ve been doing official visits, unofficial visits, getting the kids onto campus, working them out, taking pictures. So it’s been a hectic couple of weeks right here.”
Talk about building a program from the ground up. Sacramento State, which became a D-I program in 1991, has only had two winning seasons, going 21-12 in 2014-15 and 16-14 in 2019-20. The program has never played in the NCAA Tournament.
The Hornets, who have competed in the Big Sky Conference since 1996, were just 7-25 last season and finished No. 348 on KenPom. Enter Bibby, who won a national title as a true freshman point guard at Arizona in 1997, was the No. 2 overall pick in the 1998 NBA draft and played 14 seasons in the NBA but has never been a head coach above the high school level.
The move marked Bibby’s homecoming to Sacramento, where he helped lead the Kings to five playoff appearances, including a heart-breaking seven-game Western Conference Finals loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2002. So it has that prodigal-son-returning vibe and brings the program much-needed star power. That also includes Shaquille O’Neal, the center on that Lakers team, whom Bibby convinced to serve as the program’s General Manager. O’Neal’s son, Shaqir, transferred to Sacramento State after shooting 50 percent from the field, 41 percent from three-point territory and averaging 6.7 points and 3.2 rebounds in 27 games at Florida A&M last season.
Sacramento State has had a hard time competing not just in the Big Sky but also with the NBA’s Kings, who have only been beyond a play-in game for the playoffs once since Bibby departed in 2008. Even if Bibby wildly surpasses expectations, the Kings will still reign supreme, but he sounds as if he is ready to at least close the gap a little.
“I’m comfortable here,” Bibby said. “The [Sacramento State] job opened up maybe three or four years ago and I didn’t get it. I was looking around and was like, ‘Dang, you know, I think that would be a good spot for me.’
“And then it opened up again and I was like, ‘This has to be my time.’”
As busy as Bibby has been, he still has much work to do. As of Monday, the Hornets had just seven players listed on their roster. Among them: former UNLV center Jeremiah “Bear” Cherry, who averaged 9.9 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 33 games for the Runnin’ Rebels last season.
Bibby also signed sophomore guard Mikey Williams, who was a top prospect and social media star throughout high school. Williams’ career was derailed in April of 2023 when he was arrested and charged with nine felonies after firing a gun at a car full of people who were leaving his house.In November 2023, Williams pled guilty to a single felony count of making criminal threats and avoided jail time. The felony charge was reduced to a misdemeanor after he was sentenced to a year of summary probation.
Williams committed to Memphis but never played for the school. Last August, he transferred to Central Florida, where he averaged 5.1 points and 1.9 rebounds in 18 games for the Knights before a dislocated knee ended his season.
Bibby declined to comment on Williams or any of his incoming players, claiming incorrectly that it might be against NCAA rules to do so. Those players are listed on the school’s website and Bibby himself is quoted praising Williams on the player’s bio page. “Yeah, I’m staying out,” Bibby said. “I don’t know if I can talk about them. I want to stay away from as many violations as I can.”
Getting O’Neal to join the program was a huge coup which Bibby hopes will be a fundraising asset as the Hornets move into a newly renovated on-campus gymnasium this fall. O’Neal said in a statement he knows “what it takes to build a winning culture” on a team. He added, “This is about more than banners and trophies, but preparing these student-athletes for life on and off the court.” Bibby said the thought of O’Neal becoming the Hornets G.M. popped into his head after signing his son. So he called him. “That,” Bibby said, “was probably the best decision that we’ve made.”
What will O’Neal bring to Sacramento State in his unpaid, voluntary role? “I mean, whatever he wants to do,” Bibby said. “That’s Shaquille O’Neal, he can do what he wants. If he wants to sit there and just watch, he can sit there and watch. But I think he’s going to help with the program … use his connections to help us build money for the school, help [turn it into] a top-notch program.”
Given those heated Kings-Lakers battles that had Sacramento in knots, Bibby never saw himself teaming with O’Neal. “I didn’t like the Lakers. I hated the Lakers,” Bibby said. “But off the court, it was all love.”
Bibby won five Arizona state high school championships and has worked as an assistant with the Puerto Rican National Team, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Memphis Grizzlies summer league teams as well as with the NBA G-League Ignite program, which has since been disbanded. But he has never coached in college. He will have a familiar voice to rely upon when it comes to college coaching — his father Henry, who played at UCLA for John Wooden and was a longtime head coach at USC.
“They say the acorn doesn’t fall too far from the tree sometimes, right?” Henry Bibby told Hoops HQ. Asked about advice he gives his son, the elder Bibby recalled an exchange with Wooden he had decades ago. When Bibby asked Wooden about which zone defenses he preferred, Wooden replied, “Henry, I don’t know anything about that, but if my players are better than yours, I’m going to win.”
Henry Bibby has encouraged his son to think the same way. He has a tall task ahead, so there’s no choice but to think big. “It’s about Mike going out and trying to get the best players he can get,” he said. “He took on a demanding career in coaching. You’re not concerned about yourself anymore as a basketball player. You’re concerned about 15 players. You’re concerned about the A.D. You’re concerned about the assistant A.D. You’re concerned about the P.R. department. You’re concerned about not breaking any rules. You’re concerned about the alumni. As a head coach, that’s what he’s taking on.”
Now that’s hectic.
