Sam Scholl - Men's Basketball Coach (2024)

Sam Scholl enters his second season on Matt Logie's staff at Montana State in 2024-25.

Scholl's first year as an assistant coach for the Bobcatssaw Montana State secure their third straight Big Sky Tournament championship and make their third straight NCAA Tournament appearance.

With Scholl on the bench in 2023-24, the Cats took down the University of California on November 16, 2023, the program's first road victory over a Power Five opponent since 2011. Montana State would finish fifth in the Big Sky, tallying wins over each of the top four teams in the conference while going 9-9 in Big Sky play. Montana State's 70-60 home win over Eastern Washington on February 1, 2023, snapped the Eagles' seven-game unbeaten streak to start Big Sky Conference play. The Cats' finished the regular season with a 76-64 win over Weber State on ESPN2.

At the Big Sky Tournament in Boise, Montana State defeated No. 4 Weber State in the Big Sky quarterfinals andNo. 10 Sacramento State in the semifinals to set up a showdown with No. 3 Montana in the Big Sky Championship game--the first time the rivals had met in the title contest since 1986.

The Cats' 85-70 win over the Grizzlies sent Montana State dancing, with the Cats becoming the lowest seeded team to win the Big Sky Tournament since 1994. A week later, Montana State came within a few minutes of the program's first-ever NCAA Tournament win, ultimately falling to Grambling State in overtime, 88-81, atthe First Four in Dayton, Ohio.

Scholl worked closely with Montana State's wings, helping develop Brian Goracke and Tyler Patterson into the top shooting tandemin the Big Sky Conference.

Goracke had a career year in transitioning from the Division II level, averaging 13.3 points and 4.2 rebounds per game while ranking third in the conference in free throw percentage (86.5%). Goracke was named to the Big Sky All-Tournament Team after averaging 12.0 points per game in Boise, including a heroic 25-point outburst on 8-of-12 shooting to help carry the Cats past Weber State in the quarterfinal. Meanwhile, Patterson set career-highs in scoring average (8.2 ppg) and field goal percentage (40.8%) while becoming just the fourth Bobcat in program history to hit 200 career 3-pointers.

Under Scholl's shooting guidance, the Cats had three of the top-eight three-point shooters in the Big Sky Conference behind Robert Ford III (3rd, 84 made 3-pointers), Patterson (6th, 72), and Goracke (8th, 69). As a team, Montana State led the Big Sky Conference in both three-point percentage (37.0%), three-point attempts (863), and made three-point field goals per game (9.2).

In 2023-24, Montana State also finished 26th in NCAA Division I in three-point percentage (37.0%).

A long-time college coach in San Diego, Scholl enjoyed a first-hand look at San Diego State's run to the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Game during the 2022-23 seasonas the Aztecs' Basketball Performance Advisor.

The Aztecs (32-7) captured the MW regular-season title with a 15-3 record, then won all three MW Tournament games en route to claiming the tournament championship. Earning a No. 5 seed in the South Region, SDSU defeated No. 12 College of Charleston and No. 13 Furman in Orlando, Florida, before downing the overall top seed Alabama in the Sweet 16 and No. 6 Creighton in the Elite Eight in Louisville, Kentucky, to win the South Regional and make its first Final Four. At NRG Stadium in Houston, San Diego State edged No. 9 Florida Atlantic on a buzzer beater byLamont Butlerbefore falling to UConn in the NCAA national championship game.

San Diego State's 32 wins overall were the second most in program history, only trailing the 34 victories by the 2010-11 squad, led by Kawhi Leonard.

Scholl has been coaching men’s basketball on the West Coast for the last 24 years. In that time, he has guided his teams to seven postseason appearances, including three NCAA bids and one NIT bid.

The Gig Harbor, Wash., native was head coach of the University of San Diego Toreros from the 2018-19 to 2021-22, after accepting the position of interim head coach late in the 2017-18 campaign. In two of his four-plus years at the helm, he guided the program to the postseason. Posting 20 victories in 2017-18, just the fourth time since the 1986-87 season that San Diego reached the 20-win plateau, he took the team to the quarterfinal round of the 2018CollegeInsider.comTournament.

In 2018-19, his team won 21 games, reached the semifinal round of the 2019 WCC Tournament for just the second time in 13 campaigns and accepted a bid to that year’s NIT, the first such bid in school history. Scholl was either a player or coach for USD in three of the four times it has won at least 20 games in the last 35 years.

In a total of 13 seasons on the bench at San Diego, in stints from the 2000-01 to 2006-07 and then from 2015-16 to the end of the 2021-22 season, his players earned 27 All-WCC honors, including 10 first-team All-WCC designations, the 2003-04 league Newcomer of the Year, the 2005-06 Defensive Player of the Year, and five WCC All-Freshman Team designations.

A 2001 graduate of USD, Scholl spent the first seven seasons (2000-07) of his coaching career as an assistant at his alma mater. In that timeframe, he helped guide the Toreros to the championship game of the 2003 West Coast Conference (WCC) tournament and then, for just the third time in program history and the first since the 1986-87 campaign, onto that year’s NCAA tournament. In six of his initial seven seasons on the San Diego bench, the team finished with a winning record.

Sandwiched between his two stints at San Diego, Scholl spent eight seasons as an assistant on the Santa Clara University bench. Beginning his tenure in the 2007-08 season, by 2013-14 he had been elevated to associate head coach after helping to guide the Broncos to 24 wins in 2010-11 and the championship at that year’sCollegeInsider.comTournament, as well as a 26-win campaign in 2012-13 and that season’s College Basketball Invitational tournament (CBI), which Santa Clara also won.

Scholl competed for two years at Tacoma (Wash.) Community College, then transferred to USD to play for the Toreros and completed his degree in 2001. He led Gig Harbor High School to the 1996 2A Washington State championship.

Sam and his wife, Heather, have three daughters - Riley (2008), Reese (2010), and Regan (2014).