Legendary former IU basketball star Steve Alford announced today that he will retire from coaching at the conclusion of the 2026-27 season.
Alford will close out a head coaching career that spans 36 seasons and includes stops at six different NCAA programs. Alford, who enters his eighth season leading Nevada, carries a career head coaching record of 724-386.
“After 36 years, I feel like this is the right time to step away from the bench,” Alford said in a release. “Tanya and I have loved our time in Reno, and have embraced this amazing community and built lifelong friendships. I want to thank the University of Nevada for the opportunity to lead this program, and I am looking forward to finishing this season the right way, with a team I believe in.”
Alford’s 724 career wins rank 10th among all active Division I coaches. He also ranks third all-time and second among active coaches in career Mountain West victories, with 143. He is one of only two coaches in NCAA history (the other being Rick Pitino) to lead six different programs to the NCAA Tournament (Manchester College, Southwest Missouri State (now Missouri State), Iowa, New Mexico, UCLA and Nevada). Alford has made 16 combined NCAA Tournament appearances across his career, 13 at the Division I level and three at the Division III level, including three Sweet 16 appearances in five full seasons at UCLA.
Before arriving at Nevada in 2019, Alford spent six seasons at UCLA (2013-18), posting a 124-63 record with four NCAA Tournament appearances in five years, including three Sweet 16 runs, and coaching 11 NBA Draft picks, seven of them first-round selections. He spent six seasons at New Mexico (2007-13), winning four Mountain West regular-season titles and two conference tournament championships and earning three Mountain West Coach of the Year awards. Alford began his Division I head coaching career at Southwest Missouri State (1995-99) where he guided the Bears to the Sweet 16, and Iowa (1999-2007) where he won two Big 10 Tournament titles. Alford became a head coach at Manchester College (1991-95), where he was named conference coach of the year three times and led the Spartans to the 1995 NCAA Division III championship game.
A player at IU under legendary coach Bob Knight, Alford was thought to be a contender for the IU head coaching position virtually every time the job came up after Knight was fired in 2000. But for a variety of reasons that never came together.
A two-time consensus All-American at IU, Alford was the 1983 Indiana Mr. Basketball, a three-time All-Big Ten first-team selection and the 1987 Big Ten MVP. He led the Hoosiers to the 1987 NCAA Championship and finished his career as Indiana’s all-time leading scorer with 2,438 points.
Alford was inducted into the Indiana University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1997 and named to Indiana’s All-Century Team in 2001, before being inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. In 1984, he won an Olympic gold medal as a member of the United States men’s basketball team playing for Knight, the last U.S. men’s team to win Olympic gold as amateurs. Alford was selected 26th overall in the 1987 NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks and played four NBA seasons with Dallas and Golden State.
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