Frank Haith

Frank James Haith Jr. (born November 3, 1965) is an American men's basketball coach, currently serving as an assistant coach for the University of Texas.

As an assistant coach he recruited six McDonald's All-Americans, Rodney Rogers in 1990 to Wake Forest, Jerald Brown in 1995 to Texas A&M, Bradley Buckman in 2002 to Texas, and LaMarcus Aldridge, Daniel Gibson, and Michael Williams in 2004 to Texas.

In his first season, Haith took a team that was coming off two straight losing seasons and picked to finish last in the ACC and guided it to the postseason for the first time since 2002.

As a result, Haith was a finalist for the Naismith National Coach of the Year Award.

Haith was hired on April 11, 2004 and tasked with leading the Hurricanes into the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Miami also placed three players on the ACC All-Academic basketball team for the 2004–2005 season, more than any school in the conference.

An investigation in the Nevin Shapiro scandal at Miami's football program also uncovered impropriety in the men's basketball program.

Haith again took Miami to the NIT in 2005, and the Hurricanes won their first two games before bowing out in a loss to the Michigan Wolverines.

It was just the second time in Miami's basketball history that the Hurricanes had won back-to-back postseason games.

Haith reached just one NCAA tournament as the head coach at Miami, leading the Hurricanes to a second-round appearance in 2008.

The next season, Haith's team returned four starters, including sharpshooter Jack McClinton.

On April 4, 2011, Haith accepted the head coaching job at the University of Missouri.

In his first year at Missouri, Haith inherited a team that a year before went 23–11 and lost in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.

From that team, only nine players returned for Haith's first year, leaving him with a short bench, though the team had six seniors and had been to the NCAA tournament each of the last three seasons.

The bench got even shorter when senior Laurence Bowers, the team's second-best returning scorer and leading rebounder, went down with a torn ACL before the season began and after the first semester when sophomore Kadeem Green transferred.

The loss of both Bowers and Green left Haith with only two post players and just seven total scholarship players for his first season at Mizzou.

To make up for this deficiency, Haith and his staff put into place a four-guard system to attempt to take advantage of the speed, passing, and outside shooting of his roster.

The system resulted in the Tigers setting a school record for the most regular season wins with 27.

The Tigers went 13–0 in the non-conference and 14–4 in Big 12 play, and went 3–0 in the Sprint Center in Kansas City to win the Big 12 tournament.

At 30–4, the Tigers were given a 2-seed in the West bracket of the NCAA tournament, where they were upset by 15-seed Norfolk State 86–84 in their first game, ending their season at 30–5.

On March 19, 2012, the United States Basketball Writers Association awarded Haith the Henry Iba Award as national coach of the year.

On March 30, 2012, Haith was named the Associated Press College Basketball Coach of the Year.

Haith's second year at Missouri began with plenty of promise, as the Tigers began the season ranked #14 and blended a quality group of transfers in Alex Oriakhi (UConn), Jabari Brown (Oregon), Keion Bell (Pepperdine) and Earnest Ross (Auburn) in with returning point guard Phil Pressey and Laurence Bowers, who was returning from a knee injury.

The Tigers started 5–0 before losing to #2 Louisville in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas in late November.

Mizzou would reel off six straight wins after that, including defeating NCAA Tournament teams VCU and #10 Illinois in St. Louis.

Ranked #7 in the country, Mizzou lost to UCLA before beating Bucknell heading into its inaugural season in the SEC.

In conference play, Mizzou went 11–7, with all of those losses coming on the road.

The Tigers defeated #5 Florida in Mizzou Arena and won three of their final four games heading into the SEC tournament.

Mizzou beat former Big 12 rival Texas A&M in the second round of the tournament before losing to Ole Miss in the quarterfinals, 64–62.

After 2 1⁄2 years of investigation, on October 22, 2013, the NCAA handed Haith, who had by that point left for Missouri, a five-game suspension to open the 2013–14 season.

He previously served as head coach of the Tulsa Golden Hurricane from 2014 to 2022, and prior to that he served as the head coach at the University of Miami and the University of Missouri, leaving both programs in the midst of NCAA investigations.

Frank Haith was born in Queens, New York City to Frank Haith, Sr. and Dolores Haith.

At the age of five, Haith was sent with his older sister to Burlington, North Carolina, where they were raised by their grandmother, Ethel Mae Haith.

They were joined by their three remaining siblings six years later when their mother died of a heart attack.

Prior to his job at the University of Miami, Haith had been an assistant coach for 15 years at such programs as Texas, Texas A&M, UNCW, Penn State, Wake Forest, and Elon University.

Miami began the season ranked 16th in the USA Today/ESPN pre-season poll, and the media picked it to finish fourth in the ACC.

However, Miami finished below .500 in conference play and missed the NCAA tournament, instead participating in the NIT.

The following season, Haith's team finished in last place in the ACC.

Haith has also led the Hurricanes to success off-the-court.

Under Haith's tenure, all 8 Miami senior basketball players who have completed their eligibility have earned their degrees.