Ross McMains named third Louisville basketball assistant

Chris Mack has rounded out his staff for the 2021-22 Louisville men’s basketball season with the hiring of Ross McMains as U of L’s third assistant coach.

“I am thrilled to announce our newest assistant coach, Ross McMains,” said Mack in a statement. “After interviewing several candidates over the past month it was clear that Ross was the best candidate for the job. His ability to develop individual players, his feel for the game as a tactician and his desire to help Louisville win a national championship is real. Ross was highly recommended throughout the process as I talked to several coaches, general managers, agents and players all around the world. He’s super excited to get started at Louisville. Please welcome Coach McMains to the Cardinal family.”

The 32-year-old McMains is an interesting hire in that he has no prior experience when it comes to coaching college basketball. He was born in New Hampshire, but spent his childhood and his professional career going back-and-forth between the U.S. and New Zealand.

McMains spent time with both the New York Knicks and the Sacramento Kings, and most recently was an assistant coach with Melbourne United of the Australian NBL. In 2016, McMains was named the New Zealand Basketball League Coach of the Year for his work as the head coach of the Taranaki Mountainairs.

“I am extremely excited for the opportunity to coach at one of the best basketball programs in the country,” said McMains. “We are in position to compete for championships and help build the careers of a special group of young men. I am so grateful to Coach Mack and the rest of the staff for welcoming me into this storied program.”

Billed as an “offensive guru,” McMains’ hiring figures to be directly related to Mack’s offseason talk about wanting to tweak his own offensive philosophy before next season. Throughout his career, McMains has preached the need to play an up-tempo style and for the ball to never stop moving in half-court sets, two things that will likely me music to the ears of many Louisville fans.

You can hear more about McMains’ offensive philosophy in this interview, or get a glimpse of it for yourself in the video below.

If you want to see or hear more of McMains’ coaching, there are a number of videos that will pop up if you simply search his name on Twitter or YouTube.

I’m not going to pretend to know the ins and the outs of McMains’ career or to have any insight into just how big of a deal he may eventually be in the coaching world, but it’s pretty clear the man has a highly elevated understanding of modern offensive basketball, and that he knows how to effectively pass this knowledge on. Everywhere he’s gone, teams have scored significantly and efficiently. With Louisville coming off its worst offensive season (from an efficiency standpoint) in nearly two decades, I’d say that makes him a solid hire for the moment at hand.