Davidson basketball coach Bob McKillop stepping down after 33 seasons
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Bob McKillop’s retirement
Davidson head basketball coach Bob McKillop retires after 33 seasons
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Davidson basketball coach Bob McKillop is retiring after 33 seasons at the school.
McKillop, 71, announced his retirement at a Friday news conference that was originally billed as one to honor Steph Curry, who just won his fourth NBA championship with Golden State. But while Curry’s number will indeed be retired, the McKillop decision quickly usurped that news.
McKillop will be succeeded by his son, Matt McKillop, effective immediately, “not because he’s Bob’s son, but because he’s the best man for the job,” Davidson athletic director Chris Clunie said.
Matt McKillop played for his father for four years at Davidson and later became his top assistant coach. He has been an assistant at Davidson for 14 years and, before all that, was a ballboy at Davidson. Clunie was a teammate of Matt McKillop’s on the basketball team in the early 2000s.
Bob McKillop coached for 33 years at Davidson, winning 634 games and coaching the 2008 team to the NCAA tournament’s Elite Eight. Clunie said McKillop still had one more year left on his current contract but that he had told the coach long ago that he could stay as long as he wanted to. In recent days, McKillop decided it was time to go. Davidson officials interviewed Matt McKillop and decided that he was the right person to hire.
Both Matt and Bob McKillop choked up at times during Friday’s announcement. A roomful of Davidson friends and alums was shocked into silence when McKillop, after praising Curry for getting his degree in May at the beginning of the news conference, said: “Steph is part of the story. And the second part of the story is I’m stepping down as the basketball coach.”
“I read once that tears are a gift from God,” McKillop said. “Tears show that your heart can be touched. I think you know how my heart has been touched by Davidson.”
“This is an emotional day for our family,” Matt McKillop would say later. “I’m very excited, but it’s also bittersweet.”
Bob McKillop said Matt would be his “own man” and that he knew Matt was ready for the job because for the past five years, on the bench, “he’s been a pain in the butt.”
Bob McKillop added that Matt had become more vocal with his suggestions over the past few years in the middle of games, many of them good ones, and that to try to get them across to his father in those heated moments “took courage.”
Matt McKillop is 39 and hasn’t been a head coach before. He and his wife, Kelsey, have two daughters, ages 5 and 3, and a third child due in September. After his father told the Davidson players he was retiring Friday morning, Matt McKillop addressed the players as well.
“That was the first time I really got to say all this out loud,” Matt McKillop said.
“Matt will be his own man,” Bob McKillop said. “He’s not going to be an imitation of me.” For one thing, both men agreed, Matt relies more on analytics, while Bob said he relied more on his “gut.”
Matt McKillop said he would strike a balance between coaching the way he wanted to and keeping many of his father’s dictums.
“I’m sure there will be differences,” McKillop said. “I’m sure my coaching presence will be different. I’m sure my teaching style will be different but we’ve had success for a reason.”
As a player, McKillop started 98 of the 117 games he played for the Wildcats from 2002-06. He still ranks in the Davidson top 10 for 3-pointers made, 3-pointers attempted and 3-point field-goal percentage.
Bob McKillop led Davidson College to 23 conference championships (15 in the regular season, eight in the conference tournament), 10 NCAA tournament appearances and 634 wins in his 33 seasons as head coach. He coached his 1,000th career game at Davidson on Jan. 29, 2022, becoming just the 10th coach in NCAA Division I history to reach that milestone at one school.
McKillop’s most successful Davidson team came in the 2007-08 season. With Curry as its sophomore star, Davidson upset three nationally ranked foes in the NCAA men’s tournament (Gonzaga, Georgetown and Wisconsin) before losing by two points to Kansas, the eventual national champion. The basketball court inside John M. Belk Arena was named “McKillop Court” in 2014.
This story was originally published June 17, 2022 at 2:18 PM.