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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Earl Named Men's Basketball's Associate Head Coach
April 01, 2016 | Men's Basketball
Princeton alum Brian Earl '99, an assistant coach with the Tigers since 2007, has been named the program's associate head coach, Mitch Henderson, the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green '40 head coach of Princeton men's basketball, has announced.
"Brian has been a consistent part of our success at Princeton," Henderson said. "He's a teacher and he makes the coaches and the players better, which has been a staple of our program for many years. I'm very appreciative of his hard work and dedication to Princeton basketball and I'm pleased that he is moving into the associate head coach position."
Earl has helped lead the Tigers to five postseason appearances and 162 victories overall during his tenure, including 83 in Ivy League play. Among the postseason bids was a trip to the 2011 NCAA Tournament, where the Tigers came within two points of eventual Final Four team Kentucky.
The announcement comes at the end of a 2015-16 season that saw Princeton amass 22 victories, the most since the program won the 2011 Ivy League title during a 25-7 season, and push the Ivy League race to the league's final Saturday night before finishing with a 12-2 league mark.
"I am extremely grateful to Coach Henderson and Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux for the opportunity to serve the program as associate head coach,” Earl said. “In my 13 years as a coach and player at Princeton, I have been very fortunate to be surrounded by some of the best minds in the basketball world and am honored to continue to follow in the footsteps of these coaching mentors in my new capacity."
Princeton had the top scoring offense in the Ivy this season at 79.1 points per game, spurred in part by being the league's top 3-point shooting team at 9.7 3s per game.
With Henry Caruso, Spencer Weisz and Steven Cook earning All-Ivy League honors this season, 19 players have earned All-Ivy recognition during Earl's tenure. Earl helped recruit two players who went on to hold the title of the highest scorer in Princeton history other than Bill Bradley '65, including Douglas Davis '12 and Ian Hummer '13.
The 1999 Ivy League Player of the Year, Earl played in the postseason in all four of his seasons at Princeton, including in the NCAA Tournament in his first three seasons, all alongside Henderson '98. Princeton won first-round games in two off those appearances, in an upset against UCLA in 1996 and as a No. 5 seed against UNLV in 1998. As a senior, Earl helped Princeton to the Ivy League's best NIT run since Princeton's NIT title in 1975, winning twice to advance to the quarterfinals.
Earl still holds the program record with 281 3-pointers and he graduated ranking fifth all-time at Princeton with 1,428 career points.