Gerald J. Harrison<\/a>, Marshall’s Vice President and Director of Athletics. “A true son of Marshall, Coach D’Antoni’s impact on the game of basketball is undeniable. His innovative, record-breaking offensive approach helped reshape how the game is played at the highest levels, and his legacy continues to influence generations of players and coaches. This honor is a reflection not only of his remarkable career, but of the pride, creativity, and excellence that define Marshall.”<\/p>\nD’Antoni is most known for a remarkable coaching career that revolutionized the sport of basketball on a national and global level with his “Seven Seconds or Less” scheme, which featured an up-tempo ‘space-and-pace’ philosophy.<\/p>\n
His philosophy emphasized quick ball movement and efficiency in shooting, which helped redefine offense and the game as a whole by introducing an analytics-driven approach to the game.<\/p>\n
D’Antoni’s NBA coaching career spanned five different franchises with the Houston Rockets (2016-20), Los Angeles Lakers (2012-14), New York Knicks (2008-12), Phoenix Suns (2004-08) and the Denver Nuggets (1998-99).<\/p>\n
The Mullens, W.Va. native was a Two-Time NBA Coach of the Year \u2013 in the 2004-05 season with the Phoenix Suns and the 2016-17 season with the Houston Rockets.<\/p>\n
D’Antoni also served as an assistant coach for the Gold medal-winning 2012 U.S. Olympic Team and was recognized as one of the 50 Greatest Contributors in EuroLeague history.<\/p>\n
D’Antoni started his coaching career in Italy’s LBA League as the leader of Olimpia Milano \u2013 the place where he became an international legend as the league’s all-time leading scorer and top point guard of all-time.<\/p>\n
The 1997 Marshall Athletics Hall of Fame honoree spent four seasons as the head coach of Olimpia Milano (1990-94) before later joining Benetton Basket (Pallacanestro Treviso) where he had two different stints as a head coach \u2013 1994-97 and 2001-02.<\/p>\n
Prior to his coaching career, D’Antoni was a standout player for the Herd from 1970-73, leading Marshall to some of its top moments in Herd Men’s Basketball history.<\/p>\n
D’Antoni averaged 8.9 assists per game in the 1971-72 season \u2013 the single-season record for assists-per-game by a Marshall player. That was a season in which Marshall was 23-4 overall and ranked as high as No. 8 in the Associated Press Poll. The Herd finished No. 12 in the Final AP Poll that year.<\/p>\n
D’Antoni has the top two single-season marks for assists-per-game (also was 8.4 apg in 1972-73) and boasts of the all-time career record for assists-per-game at 8.2 \u2013 a mark he holds by more than two assists per game. His 659 assists came in just 80 games and are No. 3 in Marshall’s all-time record book. D’Antoni also scored 1,227 points in his time with the Herd.<\/p>\n
Following his Marshall career, D’Antoni was drafted in the 2nd Round of the NBA Draft by the Kansas City-Omaha Kings where he played two seasons before joining the ABA’s Spirits of St. Louis (1975-76). He played for the San Antonio Spurs for two games in 1976 before joining Olimpia Milano in Italy and finishing his final 13 seasons there.<\/p>\n
Enshrinement Weekend for the 2026 Class of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame will take place Aug. 14-15 in Springfield Symphony Hall in Springfield, Mass.<\/p>\n
For all the latest information about Marshall Athletics, follow @HerdZone on Twitter and Instagram.<\/p>\n
To follow all Thundering Herd sports and get live stats, schedules and free live audio, download the Marshall Athletics App for iOS and Android.\u00a0<\/p>\n
—HerdZone.com—<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HUNTINGTON, W.Va. \u2013 Marshall Athletics Hall of Famer and NBA Coaching icon Mike D’Antoni has been named as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-589996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}