Nevada coach Steve Alford will wrap up a 36-year head coaching run after the 2026-27 season, the school announced Thursday.
Alford has been in Reno since 2019 and has already left a clear mark on the Wolf Pack. Nevada has reached the NCAA Tournament twice under his watch and earned an NIT berth this past season. The program’s 24 wins last year marked the second-highest total of his Nevada tenure.
“After 36 years, I feel like this is the right time to step away from the bench,” Alford said in a release." Tanya and I have loved our time in Reno, and have embraced this amazing community and built lifelong friendships.
I want to thank the University of Nevada for the opportunity to lead this program, and I am looking forward to finishing this season the right way, with a team I believe in. God has richly blessed our family in so many ways through basketball and we are very grateful.
I'm excited to see God's direction in the next chapter."
When the season begins, Alford will bring 724 career victories into his final two years, with a head coaching record of 724-383. That total places him No. 10 among active Division I coaches. He is also one of only two coaches in NCAA history - along with current St John's c coach Rick Pitino - to take six different programs to the NCAA Tournament.
Nevada athletic director Stephanie Rempe pointed to Alford’s impact on the program and the people around it.
“Steve Alford has been an important part of Nevada Athletics and Wolf Pack Basketball for nearly a decade, leading the program with consistency, integrity, and a deep commitment to developing outstanding young men,” Rempe said. “Throughout his tenure, he helped Nevada remain one of the Mountain West Conference's most competitive programs while navigating a period of significant change in college athletics.”
Alford’s basketball resume stretches back to a decorated playing career at Indiana. He was a two-time consensus All-American under Bob Knight, the 1983 Indiana Mr.
Basketball, a three-time All-Big Ten first-team pick and the 1987 Big Ten MVP. He helped lead the Hoosiers to the 1987 NCAA Championship and finished as Indiana’s all-time leading scorer with 2,438 points.
His honors piled up after college, too. Alford was inducted into the Indiana University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1997, named to Indiana’s All-Century Team in 2001 and entered the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009.
He also won an Olympic gold medal in 1984 as part of the United States men’s basketball team under Knight, the last U.S. men’s team to win Olympic gold as amateurs. The Dallas Mavericks picked him 26th overall in the 1987 NBA Draft, and he went on to play four NBA seasons with Dallas and Golden State.
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