Steve Alford is getting ready to hang up his jacket.
The Nevada men’s basketball head coach Alford announced on Thursday that he will be retiring after the 2026-27 NCAA season. Alford will be seeing out this year, marking his 36th as a college basketball head coach and his eighth as head coach of the Wolf Pack.
“After 36 years, I feel like this is the right time to step away from the bench,” Alford said in a statement, per ESPN. “[Wife] 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.”
Alford, now 61 years old, was an All-American and a national champion as a guard for the University of Indiana from 1983-87. He later went on to play in the NBA for four seasons from 1987-91, spanning stints with the Dallas Mavericks and the Golden State Warriors.
After calling it quits as a player, Alford immediately went into coaching, first serving as the head coach of Division III Manchester University. He would eventually make the leap to D1 in 1995 and went on to coach Missouri State, Iowa, New Mexico, and UCLA before finally becoming the head coach at Nevada in 2019.
Alford currently has 13 NCAA Tournament appearances, four Sweet Sixteen berths, and 724 career coaching wins to his name. He also had a complicated legacy as a coach who was not always popular with his players or with his team’s fanbases but will now be trying to exit on a positive note with Nevada in 2026-27.
