Mike Adras has led the Northern Arizona University men’s basketball to success on and off the court in his six years since taking over the reigns of the program.

During his tenure, the Lumberjacks have earned an NCAA Tournament berth, played in two Big Sky Conference Championship games and played a style of basketball that has led to record-breaking performances and historical upsets of teams like UCLA and UNLV. He has won 90 games over that span and is the third-winningest coach in school history. In the classroom, 16 Lumberjacks have garnered Big Sky All-Academic honors, the second-best total over the last six years, while a league-best five players received the honor in 2003-04 and Kelly Golob earned CoSIDA Academic All-District selection in 2003-04, one of three sophomores in the country to earn the distinction.

Adras has also graduated 20 of the 23 players who have finished their careers during his tenure, including eight over the last three seasons. His teams have recorded the seven highest semester GPAs in the history of the program and posted a program-record 3.09 GPA for the spring semester last season.

He has tutored numerous Big Sky all-conference players, including Ross Land, Dan McClintock, Cory Schwab, Matt Gebhart, Ryan McDade, and current standouts Ruben Boykin and Kelly Golob among others. McDade, a three-time honoree from the Big Sky, was named the conference’s defensive player of the year in 2002-2003 and Land was the 2000 Big Sky Conference tournament MVP.

Adras produced one of his best coaching performances on the floor in 2003-04. Picked to finish seventh prior to the season by the coaches and media, the Lumberjacks tied for second overall in the league standings. They advanced to the conference title game for the second time in the last five years. NAU led the league in scoring at 75.9 points per game and ranked among the top-20 teams nationally in three-point field goals per game (8.4) and three-point goal percentage (.391). Individually, senior Aaron Bond had the best season of his career en route to All-Big Sky honors. He ranked second in the league in scoring. Golob also earned his second consecutive honorable mention All-Big Sky accolade. He was among the conference’s best shooters and hit 10 three-pointers in one contest, the third-best performance in the nation last season. He helped the Lumberjacks produce two of the 10 best single-game team three-pointer totals in the NCAA last season.

But the list of achievements last season result from the standards installed since he joined the program 14 years ago. After seven seasons as an assistant he took over as head coach on April 5, 1999 and he has continued the success that has seen the program achieve new heights over the last decade. Adras inherited the program from Ben Howland, the current head coach at UCLA.

During the 2003-2004 campaign he recorded his 50th career win, becoming the quickest men’s basketball coach to reach that mark in school history. The Lumberjacks started hot, winning nine of the first 12 contests, including a 67-63 win at Pauley Pavilion against 10-time national champion UCLA. It marked the best non-conference record in 23 years en route to qualifying for Big Sky postseason play again.

Adras has now led the program into the postseason in five of his six seasons at the helm and extended a postseason streak for the program that has included the Lumberjacks in postseason action in eight successive seasons until last season. In his first season as head coach, Adras led NAU into NCAA Tournament action for just the second time in school history. Playing in the West Regional in Tucson, Ariz., the Lumberjacks dropped a five-point decision 61-56 to second-seeded St. John's after leading the Red Storm with 10.9 seconds remaining in the contest. NAU earned the Big Sky automatic berth by claiming the conference tournament title with an 85-81 overtime victory over Cal State Northridge to cap a stretch in which the Lumberjacks won 14 of the final 15 games.

His first-year success made him the winningest first-year coach in program history. He was also one of three coaches in Division I to lead his team to the NCAA Tournament in his first year as a head coach and one of three to win 20 games in his first season.

Adras' "Recruit to Shoot" theme has continued as the reputation of his NAU teams. The Lumberjacks, which led the nation in three-point shooting in 1997, 1998 and 1999, have been among the national top 25 in four of the last five seasons highlighted by a top-five ranking in 2000-01 at 41.8 percent beyond the arc. Former standout Aaron Bond ranked among the national leaders in 2002-03 with 50 percent mark, leading the Big Sky Conference, while Golob has been the top shooting freshmen and sophomore in the country each of the last two seasons. In 2000-01, Cory Schwab set a NAU single season mark for three-pointers in a season (105) and finished his career second on the NAU all-time career list for three-pointers made (176). Schwab also ranked fourth in the nation with an average of 3.6 three-pointers made per game that season and his total of 105 three-pointers ranked eighth overall.

Several Lumberjacks have played professionally after leaving the Mountain campus. Dan McClintock and Ross Land, who were recruited by Adras and were seniors on his first squad, both went on to success playing professionally. Land, who joined the NAU coaching staff in the offseason, played overseas for three seasons, while McClintock, who went from project to prospect during his five seasons on campus, became the first NAU player taken in the NBA draft in over 20 years with his second-round selection by the Denver Nuggets. Overall, nine players have played professional basketball during his tenure with the program.

Adras’ instant success at the helm of the NAU program as the 23rd coach in the history of the program was no surprise. He was instrumental in helping turn around the Lumberjack basketball program from a league also-ran to a conference and regional power. The Jacks earned national recognition during Adras’ tenure as an assistant, becoming the first team to lead the nation in three-point field-goal percentage three seasons in a row. NAU also became only the second team in NCAA history to be tops in the nation from three-point land in three different seasons and was the first school in NCAA history to lead the nation in both field-goal percentage and three-point percentage (1998-99) in the same year. During the 1996-97 season, Adras helped coach the Lumberjacks to the 10th-largest turnaround in NCAA history when NAU followed up a 6-20 (1995-96) season with a 21-7 record.

As an assistant, Adras handled the responsibility of coaching the Lumberjack post players, producing two of the more notable NAU big men in school history. Former all-conference center Casey Frank and McClintock became two of the top shooters in the country, leaving a mark on the school record books in the process. Frank finished his NAU career third in field-goal percentage (.600), fourth in blocked shots (76), fifth in rebounds (598) and sixth in games played (106).

McClintock finished his standout career as the career leader in blocked shots (196) and all-time field-goal percentage (.632) leader. He also completed his career as the third-leading scorer (1,363). As a sophomore, McClintock was named Big Sky Conference tournament MVP for his 33 point, 10 rebound effort with four blocked shots in 31 minutes of play in the championship game that gave NAU its first NCAA Tournament appearance.

Adras received his bachelor’s degree in history from UC Santa Barbara and holds a master’s degree in educational administration from Nova University. After stints as a graduate assistant at UCSB and San Jose State, Adras moved into the high-school ranks at his alma mater, Las Vegas Bishop Gorman, where he won two state titles as a player. After serving as the junior-varsity coach, he was promoted to head coach and promptly won two more state championships. His tenure in the prep ranks included a 144-54 overall record, four state titles and a pair of Nevada coach of the year awards. He also served as a head coach in the 1990 McDonald’s Western Classic in Tucson.

At Gorman, Adras tutored a string of standouts, including future NBA players Brian Williams (Bison Dele) and Arizona standout Matt Othick.
Adras then left the prep ranks for Drake, where he spent one season before moving to Flagstaff. Adras speaks annually at clinics across the country and recently across borders, conducting a coaching clinic in Mexico each of the past two summers. The clinics were held in association with the Basketball Federation of Mexico. Adras lectured on his coaching techniques, while giving instruction and demonstrating different practice drills.

He is in his fourth season as one of the national voters on the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll and is a member of the NCAA West Region selection committee.

He is married to the former Maureen Linse. The couple has two daughters, Rachel who is eight, and Natalie, who will turn five in June.