Credit: UAlbany Men's Basketball
By: Sara Morris | March 1, 2021
After 20-years of coaching the University at Albany Great Danes Men’s Basketball team, Head Coach Will Brown is leaving the team, as he and the University decided to mutually part ways.
“I leave the University at Albany with an enormous sense of pride in the positive impact that my staff, my family and, most important, the student-athletes I had the honor of coaching, have had on UAlbany basketball and the greater Albany community,” Coach Brown said in a statement.
This decision comes after the Great Danes lost to the University of Hartford Hawks 77-83 last weekend on Feb. 28, narrowly missing out on the American East Conference quarterfinals and ending the men’s basketball season.
Coach Brown, who was first hired in 2001, led the team to three consecutive American East Conference championship titles from 2013 through 2015, including appearances in the NCAA tournament in each of those years. Additionally, his teams made tournament appearances in 2003 and 2005.
The American East Conference named Brown coach of the year in 2015 after a record-breaking 15-1 conference championship and advancing as the 14th seed in the NCAA March Madness bracket, and went on to lose to no. 3 Oklahoma in the second round.
Coach Brown’s 300th career win came in an 83-75 matchup against the New Jersey Institute of Technology on Jan. 16, 2021. He ends his coaching legacy with a 315-295 record.
Associate head coach, Jon Iati has been promoted to interim head coach of the Great Danes as the Athletics department begins a nationwide search for a replacement.
Iati has been with the coaching staff since 2012. He also played for Coach Brown during his collegiate career from 2004-2009. Being named the American East rookie of the year in 2004, he led the team with 1,142 career points.