Photo of Sam Patterson courtesy of Oral Roberts Athletics
BELTON — Sam Patterson is returning to Central Texas.
A former Baylor assistant and a Baylor alum, Patterson has been tabbed to lead UMHB men’s basketball as the program’s next head coach, per an announcement from UMHB on Monday afternoon.
Patterson most recently spent eight years as an assistant at Division I Oral Roberts University, contributing to the Golden Eagles’ strong stretch of success that included NCAA Tournament appearances in both 2021 and 2023.
“First and foremost, I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for this incredible opportunity to lead the men’s basketball program at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor,” Patterson said in the press release. “I’m also deeply grateful to Dr. Randy O’Rear, Randy Mann and Dr. Hunter Sims for their belief in me and the vision we share for this program. My family and I are honored and excited to join the UMHB community. I can’t wait to invest in these young men, compete with purpose and build on the tradition of excellence that makes this place so special.”
This marks Patterson’s first college head coaching job and will be his first time coaching in Division III. The San Antonio native graduated from Baylor in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology after spending four seasons as a student manager, and earned his master’s at Baylor two years later while working as a graduate assistant. He then joined the Baylor staff full-time in 2010 as the Director of Video Operations and Assistant Director of Operations, a role he stayed in until 2017.
When Baylor assistant Paul Mills accepted the head coaching job at Oral Roberts in the spring of 2017, Patterson went with him to Tulsa. He was integral in ORU’s turnaround, which saw the Golden Eagles go from being 8-22 the season prior to their arrival to a Sweet 16 appearance in the 2021 NCAA Tournament. In that Cinderella tournament run, ORU took down No. 2 seed Ohio State and No. 7 seed Florida on the opening weekend, before battling Arkansas in a narrow 72-70 loss. Two seasons later, ORU went 30-5 overall with a perfect 18-0 mark in Summit League play. When Mills left for Wichita State in 2023, Patterson stayed on staff at ORU with new head coach Russell Springmann for the next two seasons.
His Texas ties were especially helpful in ORU’s roster construction, a good sign as he comes back to the Lone Star State at UMHB. Both of ORU’s All-Americans during Patterson’s time there came from Texas in Max Abmas (Rockwall) and Kevin Obanor (Houston), and in four of the last five years, ORU had at least five Texas natives on its roster.
That successful run at ORU, combined with what Baylor accomplished during his 13 seasons in Waco, has put Patterson around plenty of high-caliber players and teams throughout his career. In total, he experienced a pair of Elite Eights, five trips to the Sweet Sixteen in an 11-year span, 20 NCAA Tournament games, and a 2013 NIT title, during his 21 years at the Division I level. He will now look to bring that with him to Belton, guiding a program that reached the ASC Tournament final in each of the last two seasons and went to the second weekend of the NCAA D-III Tournament in both 2022 and 2023.
Read the full press release from UMHB here.
