Chris Wright enters his second year at Talladega College. Despite being hired at the end of July 2018, he was able to put together a team that compiled a 24-8 record in his first season. The Tornades qualified for the NAIA National Tournament and also finished the year ranked in the top 20 in the nation.
Throughout his career, Wright's teams have averaged over 21 wins per season. He has coached ten different teams that have been ranked in the Top 25. In his seven years as a head coach he owns a 130-82 record, and has proven that he can win at challenging places. It should also be noted that has also coached 39 players that have played professionally overseas.
Wright arrived at Tornado Alley after serving as the Head Coach at Central Baptist College in 2017-2018. In his one season in Conway, he led the Mustangs to their first-ever NAIA National Tournament appearance. The team also earned their first national ranking in the history of the program after winning 14 consecutive games. Wright’s team finished 21-9 and earned a second-place finish in the American Midwest Conference. While at Central Baptist, he was able to capture his 100th career win as a head coach.
In 2016-2017 he was an assistant coach at NCAA Division II powerhouse Angelo State University. The Rams were ranked as high as fifth in the country, won 17 games, and advanced to the Lone Star Conference Championship. Wright was instrumental in signing the number one ranked junior college point guard in the country and helped the program achieve the highest team GPA in program history.
He spent the 2015-2016 season as the head coach at Graceland University. He was able to engineer an 11 game improvement of the school's previous six-win season and guided the Yellowjackets to only their second winning season in the past 21 years. The team wasa advanced to the Heart of America Conference semifinals and won six games against Top 25 opponents, along with defeating Mid-American Nazarene for the first time in 25 attempts.
In 2014-2015 Wright served as assistant coach at Arkansas Tech University. He helped lead the Wonderboys to an 18-win season, a Great American Conference Tournament Championship, and a trip to the NCAA Division II National Tournament.
Prior to coming to Arkansas Tech he spent four seasons as the head coach at Fresno Pacific University. He has posted an overall record of 67-52 and led the team to two 20-win seasons as the head coach at FPU. In the Sunbirds first year of Division II competition, Wright led Fresno Pacific to a second-place finish in the 14-team Pacific West Conference. The Sunbirds led the conference in scoring at 89 points per game and were the only team to defeat every other team in the league at least once. The Sunbirds finished the season in dominant fashion winning 14 out of their 15 final regular season games. Had Fresno Pacific been eligible for post season to play the Sunbirds would have qualified for the NCAA Tournament. FPU was led by former National Junior College Player of the Year, John Taylor who led all of college basketball in scoring at 27.5 ppg.
Before becoming the head coach at Fresno Pacific, Wright spent four seasons as the top assistant and recruiting coordinator at FPU under Jim Saia before being promoted to Associate Head Coach in 2009. It was then that he established himself as one of small-college basketball's premier recruiters. His efforts in recruiting helped transform the program from a bottom-tier GSAC team to a nationally prominent program.
In his last seven years at Fresno Pacific, Wright helped the Sunbirds compile 140 wins and were a part of five of the best eight seasons in the program’s history. The Sunbirds knocked off two Division I opponents, USC and the University of San Francisco in that span.
The recruiting classes that Wright put together as the recruiting coordinator in 2008 and 2009 paid huge dividends as FPU won 51 games and made two trips to the NAIA National Tournament in those seasons. In 2008-2009 the Sunbirds won a school-record 26 games while convincingly winning the Golden State Athletic Conference regular-season title and appearing in the NAIA National Tournament for only the second time in the program's history. FPU climbed as high as 6th in the national rankings before finishing 9th in the final poll.
In 2009-2010 the Sunbirds once again did not disappoint as they went 25-9, good enough for the second-best record in school history. FPU advanced to the “Sweet Sixteen” of the NAIA National Tournament after defeating ninth-seeded Campbellsville in the first round. The Sunbirds reached as high as #3 in the national rankings.
Before his time in Fresno, Wright served on staff during the 2005-06 season at NCAA Division I Texas State University under Head Coach and former NBA player Dennis Nutt. He also worked from 2003-2005 as an assistant at Division II St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas
During the 2002-03 season, Wright served as an assistant at Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, Texas. It was there that he helped produce a 10-game improvement from the previous season, while also helping the team reach the program's first-ever playoff bid.
Wright is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Learning and Development. He also holds a Master of Arts in Kinesiology from Fresno Pacific.
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