Joe Scott begins his first season as the DU head men[apos]s basketball coach.
Scott returns to Colorado after serving the last three seasons as head coach at Princeton, where he led his alma mater to a 38-45 (.458) mark including a second-place finish in the Ivy League in 2005-06. The Tigers led the nation in scoring defense (52.9 ppg) in 2006-07.
Scott, 41, replaced John Thompson III at Princeton after serving four years as the head coach at Air Force.
Scott led Air Force to a 22-7 record and its first NCAA tournament appearance in 42 years in 2004, when the 11th-seeded Falcons fell to North Carolina in the first round. The Falcons won their first and only MWC regular-season title that season with a 12-2 record, earning him the 2004 Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year and the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) District 13 Coach of the Year awards, as well as finishing fourth in the Associated Press National Coach of the Year voting.
Air Force led the nation in scoring defense from 2000-03 under Scott[apos]s tutelage. He posted a 51-63 (.447) overall mark in four seasons at Air Force and is considered the mastermind behind Air Force[apos]s revival.
Scott served as an assistant coach at Princeton for eight seasons under legendary Hall of Fame head coach Pete Carril (1992-96) and Bill Carmody (1996-2000). The Tigers posted a 163-61 (.728) overall record, including three Ivy League titles and five consecutive postseason appearances with Scott as an assistant coach. The Tigers averaged 23 wins with Scott serving as Carmody[apos]s top assistant coach from 1996-2000.
The 1998 Tigers finished 27-2 overall, ranked as high as No. 7 nationally during the season and earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA tournament, the highest seed ever for an Ivy League school. The 1996 Tigers upset defending national champion UCLA in the NCAA first round. The Tigers also reached the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in both 1999, when they reached the quarterfinal round, and in 2000.
While an assistant, he helped recruit two All-Americas, three Ivy League Players of the Year, one Ivy League Rookie of the Year and nine first-team All-Ivy selections. In all, he coached 10 players at Princeton who went on to play professional basketball.
Scott started his coaching career as an assistant coach under Wayne Szoke at Monmouth University (New Jersey) in 1991-92. Scott helped the Hawks to their first 20-win season since 1981-82 prior to accepting an assistant coaching position at Princeton.
As a player, Scott was a four-year letterwinner and three-year starter at point guard for Princeton who earned the B.F. Bunn Trophy as the team[apos]s Most Valuable Player in 1987. A team captain his senior year, he averaged 11.9 points per game in 1986-87 and earned second-team All-Ivy honors. He was an honorable-mention All-Ivy selection as a junior. In 1983-84, as a freshman, he played on an Ivy League championship team that reached the NCAA tournament and defeated San Diego in the tournament[apos]s preliminary round before falling to UNLV.
After graduation, Scott attended law school at the University of Notre Dame, earning his J.D. degree in 1990. While at Notre Dame, Scott played in the famous Notre Dame Bookstore Basketball Tournament, leading his team to two championships and earning Most Valuable Player honors twice.
He worked for the Morristown, N.J., law firm of Ribis, Graham & Curtin before entering the coaching profession at Monmouth.
Prior to attending Princeton, Scott starred at Toms River East High School in three sports--football, basketball and baseball. He scored a school-record 1,550 points and earned first-team All-Shore and third-team all-state honors in basketball. He also was selected All-Shore in football as a quarterback and all-county in baseball as a
shortstop.
Scott is married to the former Leah Spraragen, a 1992 Princeton graduate who was a four-year starter at point guard for the women[apos]s basketball team and later an assistant coach at Princeton, Dartmouth and Arizona State. The Scotts, married in 1999, have two young sons--Ben, will turn five in July, and Jack, who will turn three in July.
