Fordham is targeting UC Riverside coach Mike Magpayo to be the school’s next men’s basketball head coach, sources told ESPN.
The two sides are in discussions and a deal is expected to be finalized in the near future, sources added.
Magpayo has thrived in five years at UC Riverside, which has traditionally been one of the most difficult jobs on the West Coast. The Highlanders went 21-13 this season and earned an NIT bid. He won 22 games there two years ago, putting together the best two seasons in the school’s Division I history.
Magpayo has familiarity with the New York City area, where he spent four seasons as an assistant coach at Columbia. He later spent time as an assistant at both Campbell and UC Riverside before earning the head job at the latter in 2020.
He won the Big West Coach of the Year in 2023, becoming the first UC Riverside coach in history to win the award. He also went 14-6 in league play in two of the past three seasons. This season, Riverside won at Colorado State in overtime.
He would replace Keith Urgo, who was fired after back-to-back losing seasons that included a last-place finish in the Atlantic 10 in 2024-25, finishing with a 3-15 record in league play.
Magpayo is a trailblazer, as he’s the first Division I men’s head basketball coach of Asian descent. He’s the founder and president of the Asian Coaches Association, a group dedicated to supporting and developing Asian coaches.
Magpayo comes from the tree of now-Stanford coach Kyle Smith, who has a remarkable track record of producing top coaches. Smith’s Columbia’s staff in 2012-13 included two current Ivy League coaches — Columbia’s Kevin Hovde and Cornell’s Jon Jaques — along with current Florida coach Todd Golden. Florida’s top assistant coach, Carlin Hartman, was also on that staff and current Cleveland Cavs GM Koby Altman was on an earlier Columbia staff under Smith. New Campbell coach John Andrzejek was both a manager at Columbia and worked in operations there.
Fordham has been in the Atlantic 10 since 1995 and has failed to make the NCAA tournament during that stretch. The school last reached the NCAAs out of the Patriot League in 1992, meaning that six full-time coaching tenures have come and gone without Fordham reaching the NCAA tournament.
