Lynn Nance
Men's Basketball Coach
Central Missouri (1980-85)
Nance led the basketball Mules to the 1984 National Championship, and posted a 114-35 overall record in five years as the head coach, winning almost 77 percent of the games he coached at Central Missouri. He won 20 or more games and advanced to the NCAA Tournament in each of his five seasons.
Nance earned National Coach of the Year honors with a 29-3 mark and National Title during his fourth season at Central Missouri. He still holds the school record with a 26-game win streak overall, and won a record 46 in a row at home.
Nance's Mules teams went 48-14 in MIAA play, winning 3 MIAA titles and 2 MIAA Tournaments. All five of his UCM teams advanced to the NCAA Tournament and the Mules were an amazing 76-7 at home during his tenure at Central Missouri. He went on to become a successful Division I head coach at St. Mary's in California and his alma mater, the University of Washington.
He returned to the MIAA in 1996 to coach Southwest Baptist, where he was an All-American in 1963 before transferring on to Washington, where he was an All-American player at the Division I level. He is presently serving as an assistant coach at LSU under his former assistant at Washington, Trent Johnson. Nance entered the SBU Hall of Fame in 1983, the UCM Athletic Hall of Fame in 1996 and has since entered others, including the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2006.