HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Alabama A&M Director of Athletics Bryan Hicks has announced the hiring of Olympic and former National Basketball Association (NBA) coach Otis Hughley, Jr. as the Bulldogs head men’s basketball coach on Monday, April 18. Hughley was introduced at a 3 p.m. press conference in the Knight Center ballroom Monday.
“It is an honor to be named head coach of the Alabama A&M basketball program,” said Hughley. “I would like to thank Dr. Daniel Wims, Bryan Hicks and the entire search committee for the faith they have placed in me to lead this program and develop young men both athletically and academically. I am excited to get to work with our young men and immerse myself as part of the Bulldog Family.”
A veteran developer of talent at the high school, college, professional, international and Olympic level, Hughley is a well-known figure at essen- tially every level of basketball.
He began his college basketball coaching career as the head men’s and women’s coach at Wallace Community College – Selma from 1993- 97 and has served as an assistant at Wright State and Southern. He went overseas to serve as head coach of the Shandong Bulls Goldstone in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).
He became head coach at LeFlore High School in Mobile, Alabama from 2004-10, leading the Rattlers to a 185-20 record, six Alabama State Final Four berths and a 6A State Championship in 2007. Following that title, he played a key role in developing 12-year NBA veteran DeMarcus Cousins from 2007-09, posting a 59-6 mark in those two years.
Hughley would follow Cousins to the Association after he was drafted in the first round by the Sacramento Kings, joining the franchise as an assistant coach in 2010-11.
HealsohadstintsintheNBAworkingforthe GoldenStateWarriors before returning to the Kings. He returned to China with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers and as the head coach of the Chinese Taipei Men’s and Women’s National Teams in 2015-16. That same season he would serve as an assistant coach for the Tianjin Gold Lions in the CBA.
In 2017, he was named the head coach of the Nigerian Women’s National Team. In that role he helped lead the program to three Afro-Basket Championships (2017, 2019, 2021), a No. 1 world ranking in Africa, No. 14 in the world and a berth in the upcoming 2022 World Cup in Sydney, Australia. The latter made them one of the top 12 teams in the world.
Part of what helped them earn those august rankings was an impressive performance in the 2018 World Cup in Spain. There they became the first African team to win a game outside of the continent when they won three in a row to reach the quarterfinals, defeating No. 7 Turkey, No. 16 Argentina and No. 20 Greece and earned a berth in the 2020 Toyko Olympics where they finished 11th this past summer.
No stranger to coaching in Alabama, Hughley was also a member of Southeastern Conference (SEC) member Auburn’s women’s basketball staff in 2018-19, serving as a consultant to head coach Terri Williams- Flournoy. That year the Tigers produced the best record of her nine-year tenure with the Tigers, going 22-10.
He also served as a coach and teacher at long-time NBA player Kike Vandeweghe’s Next Level NBA Camp and served as a director at the Nike All-Asia, All-Taiwan and All-Philippines Camps. Hughley has also been a skills coordinator at the Pro Hoops Combine which serves as a Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) pre-draft camp.
A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Hughley holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a Computer Information Systems empha- sis earned in 1987 from Livingston.
He and his wife Valerie are the parents of four children – Jeremiah, Trinitee, Heavyn and Joshua.
