LSU Shreveport Athletic Director Lucas Morgan announced Thursday that National Championship coach Matt Cross has been named to lead the Pilots' women's basketball program. Cross takes over a program that is coming off its first conference tournament championship in its history.
"Matt is the ultimate competitor. He has won at every school he has coached at and a big strength of his is player development. You don't have the success he has had without an eye for talent and a focus on fundamentals. Probably his most impressive trait however is the ability to prepare student-athletes for life after basketball. He graduates his student-athletes at an extremely high rate. I feel very fortunate that we were able to attract someone with Matt's accomplishments. I'm very excited to welcome Matt to the Pilot Family," said Morgan.
"First of all I want to thank Chancellor Clark and Athletics Director Lucas Morgan for giving me this tremendous opportunity to come back home," said Coach Cross who grew up in Shreveport.
"LSUS treated me with a great deal of class throughout this process. I was impressed with Chancellor Clark's vision and strategic plans he has for LSUS and I am excited to become part of the mission.
"The future is bright for the Lady Pilots and I'm ready to use my experiences in knowing how to win championships to elevate this program to an even higher level as we work hard to make the Shreveport-Bossier community proud," stated Cross.
The Pilots are getting a coach that has quite an impressive resume after his first 15 years in the coaching profession. In Coach Cross' first nine seasons as a head coach he has won a total of nine championships, claiming a title in each season. In addition, he became the youngest head coach to win a National Championship at the age of 25 by leading the Talladega Tornadoes to prominence in 2009 in his first season as their men's coach. He has been a head coach for 10 seasons and has won 9 championships!
Coach Cross has been winning since the beginning and has made quite an impact on the programs he has taken over. In four consecutive seasons he led Texas College (21 wins in 2008), Talladega College (25 wins in 2009) and Lamar State (20 wins in 2010 and 26 wins in 2011) to record setting seasons in wins. He has a remarkable record against NCAA Division I opponents compiling seven wins over a span of two seasons and is the only small college coach to defeat five DI programs in a single season.
~ LSUS Sports Information
Posted By: Reginald Culpepper
Thursday, June 22nd 2017 at 2:06PM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
