Cal State San Bernardino’s last two men’s basketball coaches have used Coussoulis Arena as a launching pad to jobs in Division I.
Chris Tifft, announced as the Coyotes’ newest head coach on Monday, May 19, is done bouncing around.
“We’ve moved around a lot as a family (and) Division I used to be a big motivation when I was younger,” Tifft said. “That’s changed a little bit for me.
“I want to be at a place where I feel like we have the resources to give the student-athletes a good experience and the resources to put together a great roster, and work for someone I know and trust. I’d be happy to be the coach here for many years.”
Andy Newman coached CSUSB to an NCAA Division II Final Four during his five seasons before leaving for Cal State Northridge. Gus Argenal went to a Final Four in his first of two seasons before his recent hire at UC Riverside.
Previously the head coach at Cal Poly Humboldt, Tifft, 52, has been a head coach at the junior college level and an assistant at Cal State Northridge, Central Michigan, Saint Louis, TCU, and Nevada.
“I’m entering my 30th year of coaching and I still have the desire to coach at a high level, and I think everything is in place in San Bernardino to compete for national championships,” Tifft said.
He led the Lumberjacks to an 18-11 record last season and a berth in the California Collegiate Athletic Association tournament where they beat Cal Poly Pomona in the first round.
“I took the job in July and didn’t have any players on the roster, like, I had zero players, and we put together a roster in six weeks,” Tifft said. “It was a tough, tough start but in the second year we had some time to recruit and re-evaluate our roster and had a much better year.”
The Lumberjacks led the CCAA in field-goal percentage and were the third-best scoring offense in the conference last season. Tifft coached four all-CCAA selections.
The Coyotes (23-12 overall, 14-8 CCAA) finished third in the conference and advanced to the Division II tournament Round of 32 before losing to Point Loma.
Tifft will have to replace 10-plus players from last season’s roster, an increasingly common occurrence in college basketball.
“One thing that helps me with that is that I played junior college basketball and I coached junior college basketball for a total of 11 years, eight as a head coach,” Tifft said. “You have to rebuild the good majority of your roster every year, so I definitely have experience in recruiting not only quality student-athletes, but a good number of them.”
Only three juniors — guards Malachi Murrell (6-foot-5, 205 pounds) and Alijah Washington (5-4, 185), and forward Fallou Cisse (6-7, 200) — are eligible to return. All three have junior college playing experience and transferred to CSUSB.
The 2025-26 season starts Saturday, Nov. 1.
