USD Men's Basketball 1994-1995

Page 4 BRAD HOLLAND ~~lST YEAR Brad Holland enters his first season as head basketball coach of the University of San Diego. He was hired September 19, 1994 and replaces Hank Egan who resigned to take an assistant coach position with the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association. The 37-year-old Hol– land becomes USD's third head coach since the program turned Division I in 1979, and its tenth coach overall since the program's first season of competi– tion in 1955-56. Holland comes to USD from Cal State Fullerton where as head coach the past two seasons he revitalized the Titans program. States USD Director of Athletics Tom Iannacone, "The University of San Diego is pleased and excited to announce the appointment of Brad Holland as our new men's basketball coach. Brad possesses those personal qualities that are consistent with the values of USD. He understands the role of athletics within our university mission." The past two years Holland won rave reviews for the manner in which he revitalized the Cal State Fullerton men's basketball program. During the

HEAD COACH BRAD HOLLAND

1992-93 season, his first as a head coach, the Titans finished 15-12 and posted the school's first winning record in four years while going 10-8 in the Big West Conference. Along the way they beat every team in the conference except New Mexico State, capping the year with an exciting one-point home victory over nationally ranked UNLV. His 1993-94 team, which lost three players to season-ending injuries prior to the start of the season, finished 8-19 overall and eighth in Big West play. They did have some memorable victories -- they won at Nevada and UC Santa Barbara's Thunderdome; they won for the third year in a row at UC Irvine; and they knocked offUNLV with a 84- 75 victory at the Thomas and Mack Center. Prior to his appointment at Cal State Fullerton, Holland was an assistant coach on Jim Harrick's staff at UCLA from August, 1988 to March, 1992. He helped the Bruins return to national prominence while compiling a 93-35 record that took them to four NCAA tournaments. Success as a head coach is merely the latest positive mark Holland has made on Southern California

basketball. He was a basketball and football star at Crescenta Valley High School. He was a four-year basketball letterman at UCLA and played with the Los Angeles Lakers and two other National Basketball Association teams before retiring in 1982 due to a knee injury. He entered private business and also was a broadcaster for Prime Ticket from 1985 to 1988. Holland was the last player recruited by Coach John Wooden and became a part of four Pac-10 championship teams at UCLA from 1976 to 1979, two under Coach Gene Bartow and two under Coach Gary Cunningham. The Bruins went 102-17 during Hollands's playing career and he was honorable mention All-America and second-team Academic All-America as a senior. That year he averaged 17.5 points and 4.8 assists and had a .598 field goal percentage, the best ever by a Bruin guard. He graduated in 1979 from UCLA with a B.A. degree in Sociology. The Lakers drafted Holland in 1979, the 14th player taken in the first round, and went on to win the 1980 NBA championship. The rookie guard scored eight points in the decisive sixth game at Philadel– phia. He finished his playing career in 1981-82 with Washington and Milwaukee. Holland and his wife, Leslie, have three children, Kristen and Lisa, 12-year-old twins, and Kyle, age 2.