Alvin Brooks III
Alvin Brooks III finished his fifth season as an assistant coach at Baylor for the 2020-21 season with the Bears winning the NCAA National Championship. He joined the BU staff on April 8, 2016, after spending the previous four seasons as an assistant coach at Kansas State.
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A Houston native, Brooks has 17 years of experience as an assistant coach at numerous collegiate levels. He began his coaching career at the junior college level, spending two years as an assistant coach at Arkansas- Fort Smith (2004-06), where he helped lead the Lions to the 2006 NJCAA Division I national championship. He then spent one season at Midland College (2006-07), where he again won the NJCAA Division I national championship.
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Brooks then moved to the NCAA Division I level, where he has 14 years of experience. He spent three years as assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Bradley (2007-10), and then returned to his home state for two years as an assistant coach at Sam Houston State (2010-12). Brooks was on Bruce Weber’s staff at Kansas State for four seasons (2012-16), and he was hired to Scott Drew’s Baylor staff prior to the 2016-17 season.
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Brooks helped the Baylor Bears to a remarkable turnaround in his third season, as the Bears finished 20-14 on and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. BU was picked to finish ninth out of 10 Big 12 teams, and the Bears lost their leading scorer to a season-ending injury two games into conference play. Despite injuries to three additional starters, Baylor rallied to finish fourth in the Big 12 and secure a No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament, where they knocked off Syracuse in the first round.
With its 2019 NCAA Tournament berth, Baylor extended its school- record to eight consecutive postseason appearances, making the Bears one of 14 teams to appear in every postseason since 2012.
In Brooks’ second season, Baylor made its seventh consecutive postseason appearance and finished with a 19-15 mark in 2017-18. The Bears advanced to the NIT second round before falling on a buzzer-beater against Mississippi State. Baylor was ranked as high as No. 16 nationally, extending a streak to 11 consecutive seasons ranked. After a slew of injuries led to a 2-7 start to conference play, Baylor rebounded with a five-game winning streak that included wins over No. 10 Kansas and No. 7 Texas Tech and a double-overtime win at Texas.
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Brooks helped the Bears reach unprecedented heights in his first year with the program, earning the program’s first-ever No. 1 national ranking and a school-record fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance in 2016-17. BU began the season with 15 consecutive wins, climbing from unranked to No. 1 nationally in an eight-week span. Baylor recorded wins over top-10 opponents three times in its first eight games, with victories over No. 4 Oregon, No. 7 Xavier and No. 10 Louisville, the last of which secured the 2016 Battle 4 Atlantis title. BU also defeated No. 10 West Virginia for a school-record fourth top-10 win.
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The 2016-17 Bears tied a school-record with 12 Big 12 victories and earned a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. BU defeated New Mexico State and USC to advance to the Sweet 16, and the Bears finished the season 27-8 and ranked No. 12 nationally.
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At Kansas State, Brooks helped the Wildcats to one of the best stretches in school history with 79 wins and NCAA Tournament appearances in two of the last four seasons. He also played a major role in K-State’s first- ever Big 12 regular-season title in 2012-13, which included the second- most wins (27) and a tie for the most conference victories (14) in school history. Additionally, Brooks helped coach 10 players named to All-Big 12 teams while at K-State.
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Brooks is the son of Lamar head coach Alvin Brooks II, who has been a college basketball coach for over 30 years. The father-son duo faced each other in the 2021 Final Four, when the elder Brooks was an assistant coach at Houston. Brooks II was previously the Cougars’ first African-American head coach, leading the school to 54 wins from 1993-98. After stints with Billy Gillispie at UTEP, Texas A&M and Kentucky, Brooks II returned to Houston in 2010 to serve as associate head coach under former Texas Tech head coach James Dickey and remained on staff with the hiring of Kelvin Sampson. A 2019 inductee into the Lamar Cardinal Hall of Fame, Brooks II returned to his alma mater as head coach on April 1, 2021.
PERSONAL
Birthdate: Sept. 11, 1979
Family: Wife, Tiffany; sons Alvin IV and Austin
EDUCATION
College: Midland, 2000 (Associate of Arts - General Studies)
College: Midland, 2000 (Associate of Science - General Studies)
College: Idaho State, 2002 (Bachelor of Business Administration – Finance)
College: Idaho State, 2003 (Master of Physical Education – Athletic Administration)
COACHING EXPERIENCE
2004-06 Arkansas-Fort Smith, assistant coach
2006-07 Midland, assistant coach
2007-10 Bradley, assistant coach
2010-12 Sam Houston State, assistant coach
2012-16 Kansas State, assistant coach
2016-pres. Baylor, assistant coach
PLAYING EXPERIENCE
1998-2000 Midland
2000-02 Idaho State
POSTSEASON EXPERIENCE
2005-06 NJCAA Division I national champions (Arkansas-Fort Smith)
2006-07 NJCAA Division I national champions (Midland)
2007-08 CBI championship series (Bradley)
2008-09 CIT championship game (Bradley)
2012-13 NCAA, first round (Kansas State)
2013-14 NCAA, first round (Kansas State)
2016-17 NCAA, Sweet 16 (Baylor)
2017-18 NIT, second round (Baylor)
2018-19 NCAA, second round (Baylor)
2019-2020 NCAA. projected #1 seed (Baylor)
2020-21 NCAA National Champions (Baylor)