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UNI alum Nick Nurse named head coach of Philadelphia 76ers

PHILADELPHIA – Former UNI men’s basketball guard Nick Nurse was announced as the head coach of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday afternoon. He inherits a Philadelphia team that won 54 regular season games this past campaign as all-star forward/center Joel Embid won league MVP honors.

The 2019-20 NBA Coach of the Year, Nurse owns a wealth of coaching experience in the NBA, the NBA G-League and multiple professional leagues in Europe. In five seasons as an NBA head coach with Toronto, Nurse compiled a record of 227-163, giving him a .582 winning percentage, the best of any coach in that franchise’s history. He also guided Toronto to its first NBA title, leading the Raptors to victory over the Golden State Warriors in the 2019 NBA Finals.

During his 10-year tenure as a member of the Toronto coaching staff, Golden State (.661) was the only NBA franchise to boast a better winning percentage than Toronto (.613) over that span.

UNI is the only college in the state of Iowa to currently have an alum serving as an NBA head coach. The Panthers were also the only Iowa institution that boasted both an head coach (Nurse) and an active NBA player (A.J. Green – Milwaukee) during the 2022-23 season.

“I’m honored to be named head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, a storied franchise in a tradition-rich city,” Nurse said. “It’s been a fun challenge coaching against this group over the last five years. Now, I look forward to coaching the Sixers and doing my part to deliver for this tremendous fanbase.”

The Carroll, Iowa native stepped onto the UNI campus in 1985 and quickly became an expert sharpshooter for the Panthers. With 170 made three-point field goals in his career (a program record at the time), Nurse finished his playing career as UNI’s all-time leader in three-point shooting percentage at 46.8%, a mark that still stands to this day. He graduated from UNI with an accounting degree in 1990.

After spending a year as a graduate assistant at UNI under head coach Eldon Miller, Nurse joined the British Basketball League’s (BBL) Derby Rams for a season as a player-coach before taking his first full-time college coaching position at Grand View University in Des Moines. Two years later, Nurse made the jump to NCAA Division II coaching as an assistant at South Dakota.

In 1995, Nurse began his first stint coaching in Europe in the BBL and Belgium, leading the Birmingham Bullets, Telindus Oostende, Manchester Giants and London Towers, winning a BBL championship in 1996 with Birmingham and in 2000 with Manchester. Nurse returned to the United States in 2001 as an assistant coach with the USBL’s Oklahoma Storm before returning to England to coach the Brighton Bears from 2001 to 2006, where he won the 2003 English Cup.

After several years abroad, Nurse returned to Iowa in 2007 as the head coach of the NBA G-League Iowa Energy. In his four seasons coaching in Des Moines, Nurse led the Energy, then the affiliate of the Memphis Grizzlies, to a league championship in 2011. Nurse would coach his next two seasons with the G-League’s Rio Grande Valley Vipers, coaching the Houston Rockets’ affiliate to a championship in 2013.

After 22 years coaching at the college and professional level, Nurse earned his first NBA assistant coaching position in 2013 with the Toronto Raptors under head coach Dwayne Casey. The Raptors made the postseason each season with Nurse on the bench and promoted the long-traveled coach to the head position ahead of the 2018-19 season.

In his first season as Raptors’ head coach, thanks to the play of all-stars Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry, as well as standout Pascal Siakam, Toronto won 58 games in the regular season en route to a division title and the second-seed in the Eastern Conference brackets. Following series wins over Orlando, Philadelphia and Milwaukee, Nurse’s Raptors made history in delivering the franchise’s first championship, and the first NBA title by a team outside the United States in a thrilling six-game series against the two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors.

While the 2019-20 season saw the suspension of play and relocation of the season’s final games and postseason to Florida due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nurse’s coaching continued to improve as Toronto repeated as division champions to earn him NBA Coach of the Year honors. Nurse helped guide the Raptors to the postseason again during the 2021-22 season, as well as the NBA Play-In Tournament this past spring.

(Photo of Nurse via NBA)

Nick Nurse’s Coaching Career

UNI (NCAA Division I), Graduate Assistant (1989-90)

Derby Rams (BBL), Player/Coach (1990-91)

Grand View (NAIA), Head Coach (1991-93)

South Dakota (NCAA Division II), Assistant Coach (1993-95)

Birmingham Bullets (BBL), Head Coach (1995-97)

Tellindus Oostende (Belgium), Head Coach (1998)

Manchester Giants (BBL), Head Coach (1998-00)

London Towers (BBL), Head Coach (2000-01)

Oklahoma Storm (USBL), Assistant Coach (2001)

Brighton Bears (BBL), Head Coach (2001-06)

Oklahoma Storm (USBL), Assistant Coach (2005)

Iowa Energy (NBA G-League), Head Coach (2007-11)

Rio Grande Valley Vipers (NBA G-League), Head Coach (2011-13)

Toronto Raptors (NBA), Assistant Coach (2013-18)

Toronto Raptors (NBA), Head Coach (2018-23)

Canadian Men’s National Team, Head Coach (2019-pres.)

Philadelphia 76ers (NBA), Head Coach (2023-pres.)

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