January 22,
2007
Men’s basketball coach earns 500th career
win
Mike Neer made University history on January 5 by
being the first men’s basketball coach to surpass 500 career
wins.
For head coach Mike Neer, the new year brought
a new number: 500—his 500th victory, that is.
Neer reached the milestone on January 5 when
Rochester defeated 23rd-ranked Brandeis, 83-65. The Yellowjackets
went on a 20-0 run against Brandeis in a five-minute stretch during
the first half and scored five three-point goals in less than two
and a half minutes.
The win made Neer the coach with the greatest
number of victories in University history.
With several games since the Brandeis match-up,
including a JPMorgan Chase Scholarship Tournament championship
title, Neer’s record now stands at 503-296 for his 31 years
at Rochester.
“There are two ways you kind of know that
you’ve arrived,” Neer says. “Most people would
assume that it’s when you start winning. The thing that I trust more is when the
players start to develop some ownership of our style of play, of our
value system, of why we do certain things.”
Neer was named Coach of the Year by the
National Association of Basketball Coaches for the 1989–90
season, when he led the Yellowjackets to the Division III National
Championship. Since 2001 he has taken the team twice to the NCAA
tournament’s Sweet 16 and twice to the Final Four. The
Yellowjackets went to the finals in 2005.
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