Hoops Fever

Chris Mack takes the helm as College of Charleston’s head basketball coach

By Barry Waldman

If Alice and the Mad Hatter had been basketball coaches in Wonderland, this is the career arc they would have shared. Except, it happened in real life. In fact, it happened here in Charleston. Chris Mack, the talented Louisville men’s college basketball coach, jettisoned from the team under odd circumstances, sat at home awaiting his next gig.

Meanwhile, Pat Kelsey, his former assistant lit the College of Charleston on fire with a 58-12 record and two conference titles for men’s basketball. He then bolted to lead the iconic program at…Louisville.

That opened the door for his former boss to secure the CofC gig, effecting a flip-flop in which each coach is the other’s successor. The good news is, it might very well have a happy ending in the Holy City.

College of Charleston, playing in the mid-level Colonial Athletic Conference where student-athletes are actually—get this—students, has secured itself a top talent in Chris Mack.

A former Division 1 player himself with a bigtime coaching pedigree, Mack guided his alma mater Xavier into the Big East Conference and earned three Sweet 16s and an Elite 8 in the NCAA tournament.

He then led Louisville to #1 in the country in just his second season before COVID wrecked their championship dreams. His arrival on George Street harkens to Bobby Cremins’ tenure in Charleston following a storied ACC career more than a decade ago—except Mack is in his prime.

“When looking for our next leader, we focused on attracting an individual that is a proven winner and shares our vision of championship basketball,” said College of Charleston Athletic Director Matt Roberts.

Following a two-year coaching hiatus during which he says he was approached by several major-conference teams, entering the 2024-25 season, Mack signed a five-year contract worth roughly $1.1 million annually to lead the Cougars. His spring and summer have been dedicated to the grueling task of compiling a roster and building a culture. He hopes to re-create the magic he enjoyed at Xavier, where his 2017-18 squad went 29-6, won the Big East regular season title and secured the school’s only #1 seed in the NCAA tournament, earning him the league’s Coach of the Year honor.

Despite some success on the court, it all unraveled in Louisville, one of the premier coaching jobs in the nation, which also proved to be one of the toughest. The firing of two loyal assistants, a public dustup with one of them, and the apparent loss of commitment from players, led to an amicable divorce with the university, accompanied by a $4.8 million buyout.

Mack has nothing but good things to say about Louisville, but adds, “I’ve moved on to a different chapter in my life. You live and learn and I’m excited to get started here at Charleston.”

Mack now faces a different kind of challenge, attempting to win at the mid-major level at a liberal arts college in a city with plenty of other things to do than watch mid-major basketball. Moreover, after the charismatic previous coach Kelsey led the Cougars to two of their best seasons ever, several key player-contributors have mostly departed, leaving a scattering of jigsaw pieces to fit together into a coherent team.

Player Preview

This season, senior center Ante Brzovic will anchor a young United Nations contingent that includes players from Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia, Serbia and Lithuania, in addition to Brzovic, who hails from Croatia.

Mack brought in Lipscomb University transfer Derrin Boyd, a 6’3” shooting guard who led the Bison in scoring last year with a deadly three-point shot, and he is counting on two transfers to spearhead the point of attack on the perimeter: Delaware State sophomore transfer Deywilk Tavarez, last season’s rookie of the year in the lower-level Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, and St. Louis University transfer Djordje Curcic, who broke his foot midway through his freshman campaign in the higher-level Atlantic-10.

Brzovic is the man in the middle of College of Charleston hoops, both literally and figuratively. At 6’10” and 225 pounds, Brzovic can bully conference opponents in the paint, but was under-used in Kelsey’s hair-on-fire offenses. Despite averaging 12 points and six rebounds last year, and earning a pre-season all-conference designation, his potential has yet to be tapped.

“We can play a bigger line-up with Ante at the 5 (center) and Lazar Djokovic at the 4 (power forward). We can decide to go quick at times with AJ Smith and Elijah Jones manning the front court. All-in-all, I love our team, our versatility and our ability to play different ways from night to night,” Mack said.

There’s a unique hallmark of Mack’s teams: a team-first culture. Mack seeks scrappy players prioritizing wins over individual honors. The star of a Chris Mack team is its record, with kudos flowing residually to the players. This formula worked magnificently at Xavier, and can shine at CofC, where the players have no illusions of million-dollar NIL deals or nine-figure NBA careers, and thus are content to play their parts in an ensemble.

“Everyone has a role and a job to do and we need to do it to the best of our ability every single day,” said Mack.

Hoops History

Mack grew up in a Cincinnati suburb and starred in basketball in high school, graduating in 1988 as the area’s player of the year. He played college hoops first at Evansville and then at Xavier, where he served as team captain, a testament to his leadership despite averaging just seven points a game for his career.

He and the former Christi Hester, a college hoopster at Dayton, have three teenage children. Mack says the family has enjoyed the Charleston restaurant scene, but has yet to see the sights. If they’re so moved, they can visit Fort Sumter, from which the Union troops unceremoniously agreed to leave—but later earned redemption at Appomattox.

It might be a parable for Mack’s coaching career, and it couldn’t happen at a more appropriate place than Charleston, which has earned its own redemption from those postbellum days as the #1 city in the world.

For a schedule of College of Charleston basketball games and tickets for the 2024-25 season, visit www.cofcsports.com.

BIO

Chris Mack

Head Coach, College of Charleston men’s basketball

Hometown

Cincinnati suburbs

Education

B.A. Communication Arts, Xavier University, 1992

Family

Wife, Christi and three children, Lainee, Hailee and Brayden

Hobbies

Spending time with family