Kevin Baggett Named 2015 The Rock MAAC Coach of the Year
MAAC Sports
ALBANY, N.Y. – Rider University head coach Kevin Baggett has been announced as the 2014-15 Men’s Basketball The Rock MAAC Coach of the Year, chosen in a vote of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s head coaches.
In his third year at the helm of the Rider University Broncs, Kevin Baggett guided his team to a 15-5 MAAC mark and 21-10 overall record. His Broncs earned the No. 2 overall seed in the MAAC championship after being picked seventh in the coaches’ preseason polls. In the regular season, Rider ranked second in the league in shooting percentage, rebounding margin, and three-point field goal percentage defense. Two of Baggett’s players earned All-MAAC honors in the 2014-15 campaign.
In his first year as head coach, Baggett was a finalist for two different National Coach of the Year Awards, the Ben Jobe Award and the Joe B. Hall Award.
Baggett took a team with just two returning starters and six total letter winners that was picked to finish seventh in the 10-team Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in 2013 and finished in second place.
He guided the 2012-13 Broncs to a 19-win season, the most by a Rider rookie head coach since Bob Greenwood led Rider to a 20-win season in 1962-63. The only other Rider basketball coach to compile 19 wins in his rookie campaign was the legendary Clair Bee.
Last year Coach Baggett took a young team and produced two All-MAAC performers along with a MAAC All-Rookie team selection. His 2013-14 squad was ranked eighth in the nation in three-point field goal percentage and was 51st in Division I in three-point field goals made.
With an emphasis on defense, Baggett’s Broncs led the MAAC in three-point field goal percentage defense in 2012-13 and was second in overall field goal percentage defense, third in blocks and fourth in points allowed.
The 2014-15 season is the ninth for Baggett as a member of the Rider staff, serving two as an assistant coach and four as an associate head coach. In the last eight years, Rider has compiled 144 wins, the most in the Metropolitan New York/New Jersey area. Siena is the only MAAC team with more wins in those eight years.
Baggett has coached on the Division I level for 19 years and has been on the Rider staff since the 2006-07 season.
Baggett hails from Burlington, New Jersey and was a 2006 inductee into the South Jersey Hall of Fame. He was a member of the Saint Joseph’s 1985-86 basketball team that compiled a 26-6 record and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament. He received his bachelor's degree in marketing from Saint Joseph's in June, 1989.
Baggett came to Rider from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where he served as assistant coach from 2004-06. At UMBC Baggett recruited an America East All-Rookie Team member who went on to earn First Team All-Conference honors three times, as well as a pair of transfers from the Colonial Athletic Association who went on to earn All-America East honors.
Baggett has also served as an assistant coach at James Madison, Howard, Western Kentucky and Coastal Carolina.