Brandon Linton begins his second season as head coach of the Nichols College men’s basketball program in 2020-21.
Named the
20th men’s basketball head coach at Nichols College on June 13, 2019, Linton guided the Bison to their fourth-consecutive Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) Championship in 2019-20. His collegiate coaching debut got off to an auspicious start, however, as he lost his starting center for the season just seconds into his first game as a head coach. Then, shortly after climbing to No. 6 in the D3hoops.com Top 25 poll, the Bison dropped three-straight conference games at the end of January, leaving them in the middle of the pack at 6-4 in the CCC (11-8 overall).
The Bison responded with six-straight CCC wins to close the regular season before home playoff wins over Roger Williams and Gordon sent the Bison back to ‘The Ship’ for the fourth-consecutive season, where they upset top-seeded Endicott, 76-75, to advance to the NCAA Tournament for the fourth-straight year. Back by a game-high 28 points from senior captain DeAnte Bruton, Nichols stunned Stevens Institute, 74-72, in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament – the third time in four years the Bison scored an opening-round win. Linton saw three of his student-athletes earn all-conference honors: Bruton (First Team), Matt Morrow (Second Team), and Nate Tenaglia (Defensive Player of the Year), while Bruton went on to grab D3hoops.com All-America Second Team honors.
Linton came to Nichols following five seasons as an assistant coach at Army West Point, where he was responsible for the development of scouting reports on opponents and managing the scout team. He worked specifically with the Cadets wing players at practice while also assisting with all in-game strategy. Linton – who tracked defensive possessions and goal specific statistics during games – was the underclass recruiting coordinator with key territories being New England, the West Coast, and the Southeast. He also coordinated and operated all aspects of the Army West Point Summer Camp, supervised a staff of 10+ student managers, coached the junior varsity team, and logged all compliance paperwork for the Cadets.
Linton was named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches ’30-Under-30’ Team following a 2014-15 campaign which saw Army win 15 games, highlighted by an 85-77 overtime win over the University of Southern California (USC) on December 13 – its first over a Pac-10 school since 1964. The following season, the Cadets posted a 19-14 record and advanced to both the Patriot League Semifinals and the Collegeinsider.com Tournament. Army won a school-record 11 road games that season while the 19 wins marked the highest win total and first postseason berth for the program since the 1977-78 campaign.
Linton cut his teeth in the collegiate coaching ranks at his alma mater, Clarkson University, shortly after receiving his Bachelor of Science in Business in 2010. In two years as both an assistant men’s basketball coach and the Assistant Dean of Undergraduate & Transfer Admissions (2010-12), the Golden Knights went 28-22 as Linton was responsible for parts of team scouting (video breakdown and written reports) while coaching the guards and post players during breakdown drills.
In the summer of 2012, Linton accepted an assistant coaching position at
Bowdoin College, where he served as the recruiting coordinator, prepared video scouting reports for each opponent, coached the second unit during 5-on-5 competition during practice, managed in-game substitutions, and charted all offensive possessions. Linton helped the Polar Bears post a 19-6 mark in 2013-14 (6-4 New England Small College Athletic Conference) and earn their first berth into the NCAA Tournament since 2008.
Bowdoin opened the season 12-0 – the longest winning streak in program history – and its .762 winning percentage was the highest in program history.
Linton received his Bachelor of Science in Business from Clarkson in 2010.
Career record at Nichols
|
W |
L |
| 2019-20 |
21 |
9 |
| Total |
21 |
9 |
