With 10 years of NCAA Division I basketball coaching experience, the 2020-21 season will be Nick Booker's fourth season as the associate head coach on the staff of Eastern men’s basketball head coach Shantay Legans.
His responsibilities at EWU include player skill development with emphasis on post players, and on-court coaching with defensive emphasis. He also oversees academic monitoring, recruiting, practice planning, in-season opponent scouting and summer camps.
In three seasons at Eastern, Booker has helped Eastern win 59 games overall, 41 in Big Sky Conference play and the outright league championship in 2019-20. Prior to that, EWU had appearances the previous two seasons in the Big Sky Tournament championship game.
As a result of that success, on May 16, 2020, silverwavesmedia.com picked him as one of the top 50 impactful NCAA Division I assistant coaches in the nation among low-major schools (the Power 6 conferences were excluded).
One of the best seasons in school history came to a screeching halt on March 12, 2020, when cancellations of both the Big Sky Conference and NCAA Division I tournaments dashed EWU’s promising postseason hopes in the 2019-20 campaign. The Eagles finished 23-8 overall and 16-4 in the Big Sky.
In 2019-20, Mason Peatling was the Big Sky’s MVP and a first team All-Big Sky selection, Jacob Davison earned a spot on the second team and sophomore Kim Aiken Jr. was on the third team. Peatling and Davison both earned NABC All-District 6 accolades, and Peatling was a first team Academic All-American as well.
In 2018-19, Eastern defeated all 10 Big Sky Conference foes en route to finishing 12-8 in league play and going 16-18 overall. Decimated by injuries, Eastern was 1-9 at one point in the 2018-19 season before winning 13 of its last 19.
Forward Jesse Hunt earned first team All-Big Sky honors for the Eagles, Peatling was on the second team and Davison earned third team honors. Aiken earned All-Big Sky Tournament honors along with Peatling.
In his first season in 2017-18, Eastern featured Big Sky MVP Bogdan Bliznyuk and the Eagles finished 20-15 overall and 13-5 in the Big Sky. Among the victories was a 67-61 triumph at Stanford to break EWU’s 21-game losing streak versus Pacific-12 Conference foes.
Before coming to Eastern for the debut season of Legans, Booker spent the 2016-17 season at his alma mater, Davidson College, as director of basketball operations. The previous six seasons he was at UC Irvine in California, including the last five as an assistant coach.
As a player and coach, he has been a part of teams to advance to the NCAA Tournament twice, as well as the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) once, the College Insider Tournament (CIT) on two occasions and the College Basketball Invitational while at EWU in 2017-18. He was also an assistant on Saddleback College teams which won the California Community College Athletic Association title one season and was runner-up the year prior.
“Coach Booker has a great basketball mind, and is well-respected among basketball coaches around the country and internationally,” said Legans. “His desire to help student-athletes succeed both on and off the court is an extremely important quality for our program."
In his lone season on the staff at Davidson, the Wildcats finished 17-15 overall and 8-10 in the Atlantic 10 Conference. While on the bench for the Anteaters the previous six years, UC Irvine was 118-90 overall, 60-38 in Big West play and advanced to the postseason four times, including the 2015 NCAA Tournament.
“Nick understands what we look for in student-athletes, and knows what It takes to be a successful coach,” added Legans. “He has won at every level, first, as a player at Davidson, but also at the junior college and NCAA Division I levels as a coach.”
The 2016-17 season was Booker’s seventh year overall as a member of the UC Irvine basketball staff and his sixth as an assistant coach with the Anteater program. Booker was promoted to assistant coach prior to the 2011-12 season after serving his first season as the team’s director of operations, in which he assisted the basketball coaching staff with travel, purchasing, film exchange, community service and handled many of the day-to-day office duties.
Booker’s responsibilities as an assistant included skill development, academic monitoring, recruiting, on-court coaching (defensive emphasis), and summer camps. Booker was involved in the player-development process and has helped 10 players earn All-Big West Conference accolades in his tenure at UC Irvine.
Booker also played a vital role in the performance of Anteater players in the classroom by working directly with UC Irvine’s academic support center to ensure the players’ obligations are met. In his career at UC Irvine, Booker has helped sign, and maintain eligibility, of arguably the best recruiting classes in UC Irvine history.
In the 2015-16 season, the Anteaters registered a school-record 28 wins and also set new UCI marks for non-conference victories (15) and road wins (13). The team advanced to the championship game of the CollegeInsider.com (CIT) postseason tournament and the Anteaters had an RPI as high as 41 (best in school history) during the regular season and a final RPI of 68.
Booker was also involved in the school’s historic 2014-15 season when the Anteaters won the Big West Conference Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time. The Anteaters fell to three-time national champion Louisville by just two points in an NCAA Second-Round game at Seattle, Wash.
The 2013-14 team advanced to the NIT and the 2012-13 squad played in the CIT where is recorded the first national postseason win in school history. That started a four-year stretch in which the Anteaters were a collective 93-51 (21-16, 23-12, 21-13, 28-10), with a pair of Big West titles.
Booker’s efforts helped the Anteaters become one of the most feared defensive teams in the nation. In four of his seasons on the staff, UC Irvine ranked in the top 25 in field goal percentage defense, including third in 2014-15.
Prior to joining the Anteater staff, Booker served as an assistant coach at powerhouse community college, Saddleback College. Booker was instrumental in helping recruit and develop several All-State players, while the team captured the California Community College State Championship in 2009.
He graduated from Davidson College in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in history. He was a member of the Wildcats’ team under current Davidson College head coach Bob McKillop. Booker was a starter for the 2002 Southern Conference championship team that competed in the NCAA Tournament against Ohio State. As a senior, he led Davidson in blocked shots and steals.
Booker went on to receive his master’s degree in physical education from Azusa Pacific in 2010.
A native of San Diego, Calif., where he earned four varsity letters at The Bishop’s School, Booker has three children, Philip, Kaleb, and Ella.
