Joe Scott (basketball coach)
Joe Scott (July 28, 1965 – ) is an American college men's basketball coach. The Pelican Island, New Jersey native is the current head coach at Princeton University, replacing John Thompson III on April 21, 2004.
Scott has a 27-28 record through two seasons at Princeton. The team finished sixth in the Ivy League in 2004-05, his first season, with a 6-8 record, before rebounding to a 10-4 mark good for second place in the conference in 2005-06. Scott Greenman, a senior point guard, became Scott's first First-Team All-Ivy player in 2006.
As a player in the mid-1980s, Scott became schooled in the "Princeton offense," a methodical system that seeks high-percentage shots by passing until the right opportunity rather than a fast-pace offense with more shots. With fewer possessions on both ends as a result of the slower offense, Princeton finished second in the nation in scoring defense according to statistics compiled by the NCAA, holding teams to 55.6 points per game. However, Princeton ranked last of 326 teams in scoring offense at 51.9 points per game.
Scott came to Princeton after getting his first head coaching job at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA), where he accrued a 51-63 record in four seasons from 2000-2004. After guiding the Falcons to a 22-7 record and an NCAA Tournament berth in 2003-04, Scott was named the Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year and was selected as the head coach at Princeton after Thompson left to coach at Georgetown University, where Thompson's father was the longtime head coach.
Prior to Air Force, Scott was an assistant coach at Princeton under Pete Carril and Bill Carmody. His eight-year tenure (1992-2000) included highlights like the 1996 win over defending champion UCLA in the NCAA Tournament and a No. 7 ranking and another second-round NCAA appearance in 1998. The 1998 team earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the highest ranking ever for an Ivy League school.
Between his graduation from Princeton in 1987 and his return to the school in 1992 as an assistant coach, Scott earned his law degree at the University of Notre Dame and worked at a New Jersey law firm before spending one season as an assistant coach at Monmouth University in 1991-92.
He starred as point guard for Toms River High School East, and currently holds the school record for career basketball points at 1,550.
Scott's wife, Leah (Spraragen), is a 1992 Princeton graduate and was also a point guard, playing for the Tiger women's basketball team. They have two children. [1]