Alabama Basketball Hires Preston Murphy as Assistant Coach

Nate Oats filled out his coaching staff for the coming season after the former Creighton assistant's show-cause penalty with NCAA expired.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama basketball has made its final assistant coaching hire of the offseason, hiring former Creighton assistant Preston Murphy to the official title of "Special Assistant to the Head Coach," per UA's announcement. 

“I’m pleased to be completing our basketball staff with the addition of Coach Murphy. He was a highly sought-after candidate, and we were fortunate he was most interested in joining our program,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said in an official statement. “I have known Preston for a long time, and I am excited about the many ways he can add tremendous value to what we do. I am always impressed with his energy, his humility, and his basketball acumen.

"His insight, experience and ability to connect with student-athletes will be a significant advantage for us. Additionally, Preston is a great person who is highly-regarded throughout the college basketball community. We have every expectation his hire will contribute to the continued success and high benchmarks of Alabama basketball.”

Murphy has been in Division I coaching since 2010, spending four years as an assistant coach at Rhode Island, where he played college basketball from 1995-1999, before transitioning to an associate head coaching role in 2014. From 2014-2015, he served as an assistant for Boston College.

Most recently, Murphy was an assistant coach at Creighton from 2015-2019. Creighton won 20 games every year Murphy was in Omaha, and made the NCAA Tournament twice in his tenure.

As one of Creighton's lead recruiters, Murphy brought in Bluejay legend Marcus Zegarowski in the Class of 2018, who went on to be a First Team All-Big East and Second Team All-American selection in his collegiate career.

However, his time with the program ended in controversy. Following an FBI investigation into college basketball, Murphy was levied with a two-year show-cause penalty for accepting an improper payment from Christian Dawkins. The penalty expired in June. 

Specifically, the NCAA investigation, which was cited in a federal indictment, found that he "violated NCAA ethical conduct rules when he accepted a $6,000 payment from a business management company that intended to use coaches to influence student-athletes to retain the company and when he provided false or misleading information about his actions during the investigation." He also provided "false or misleading information about his actions during the investigation."

Murphy joins a newly-formed staff in Tuscaloosa, with former Nicholls State head coach Austin Claunch and former New Orleans Pelicans assistant coach Ryan Pannone.

Murphy, Pannone and Claunch replace the three Alabama assistants who took head coaching jobs at the end of the season: Bryan Hodsgon (Arkansas State), Charlie Henry (Georgia Southern), and Antoine Pettway (Kennesaw State).

See also:

Alabama Basketball Roster Tracker: 2023 Offseason

Alabama Basketball Newcomer Breakdown: Aaron Estrada

Alabama Basketball Newcomer Breakdown: Latrell Wrightsell Jr.