Marshall University Athletics
Marshall Athletics Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1997
- Class:
- 1972
When the Marshall basketball team achieved the highest rankings in school history, Mike D’Antoni was running the show as the team’s point guard. The Mullens, W.Va., product played on the Marshall freshman team for his older brother, Dan, and then in his three years as a member of the varsity squad led the Thundering Herd to unprecedented success. D’Antoni remains third in school history with 659 career assists and is second on the single-season assists list with his total of 241 as a junior in the 1971-72 season. That year, Marshall logged a 23-4 overall record and was ranked as high as No. 8 in the nation in the Associated Press poll during the season and No. 12 in the final poll – both the highest all-time for the Thundering Herd. D’Antoni also scored 1,227 points in his Marshall career, and was named an Academic All-American in both 1971-72 and 1972-73.
Following his Marshall career, D’Antoni was drafted by the Kansas City-Omaha Kings in the second round of the NBA Draft and by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the ABA Draft. After playing four seasons in the NBA and ABA, he moved on to play professionally in Italy, where he became the all-time leading scorer for Olimpia Milano and in 1990 was named the best point guard in league history. When his playing career ended, D’Antoni became a coach, winning several championships in Europe, and then returned to the United States and began coaching in the NBA, where he served as head coach for the Denver Nuggets, Phoenix Suns, New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers between 1998 and 2014, and since 2016 with the Houston Rockets. He has twice been named the NBA Coach of the Year and been honored as one of the Top 50 contributors to European Basketball. D’Antoni served Marshall as co-chairman of the Vision Campaign for Athletics, which raised the funds to build the Chris Cline Athletic Complex. He was inducted into the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame in 1997.
