Dave Davis enters his second season as associate head basketball coach following his hire in May of 2022.
Working with the youngest team in the country during the 2022-23 season, the Keydets ranked first in the SoCon in free throw percentage at 76.6 percent and topped the league in offensive rebounding average at 10.9 per game. VMI also shot well from beyond the arc, ranking second in the conference in three-pointers made (309) and fourth in three-point field goal percentage (.351).
Davis came to the Institute after serving the 2021-22 season as the associate head coach at the College of Charleston, where he helped the team to a 17-15 overall record as four Cougars earned All-Colonial Athletic Association postseason honors. John Meeks and Dimitrius Underwood earned second team honors while freshmen Reyne Smith and Ben Burnham were named to the All-Rookie Team.
Prior to the College of Charleston, Davis served as the associate head coach for two seasons at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. During his time at Winthrop, the Eagles won the Big South Conference Championship title in back-to-back years and earned the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament in 2020 and 2021.
He was the head coach for nine seasons at Newberry College from 2010 to 2019 and Pfeiffer for 14 seasons from 1996 to 2010.
With 28 years of experience as a head coach, Davis arrived at Winthrop after nine seasons at the helm of Newberry College in Newberry, South Carolina. During his nine seasons with Newberry, the team led the South Atlantic Conference in scoring seven times.
In his tenure at Newberry, Davis posted five of the top six win totals in program history, which included seven consecutive winning seasons from 2011-12 until 2017-18. In addition to leading the SAC in scoring seven times in nine years, his teams ranked in the Top 10 nationally in scoring all nine seasons. In his nine seasons, Davis had 17 players earn All-South Atlantic Conference honors. He mentored three SAC Freshmen of the Year, four SAC Scholar-Athletes of the Year for Men's Basketball (all in the last five years) and an Academic All-American.
Prior to Newberry, Davis enjoyed a successful stint as head men's basketball coach of Pfeiffer University. In 14 seasons at Pfeiffer, Davis accumulated a record of 284-124 (.696) including 21 championships, NCAA Division II Sweet Sixteen appearances in 2000 and 2004, and an NCAA Elite Eight appearance in 2004. Davis' Pfeiffer teams averaged over 20 wins per season and rank in the top five in wins since 1990 in all of NCAA Division II basketball. Davis was named the CVAC Coach of the Year in 1998, 1999 and 2004. He was also named the NCAA East Regional Coach of the Year in 2004.
Davis' 2009-10 Pfeiffer team finished as the highest scoring team in Division II at 103.1 points per game and his teams led the country - Division I and II - in scoring five times. They scored 66 second half points vs. North Carolina in the Dean Dome, the most points scored against the Tar Heels in one half in the history of their program. The Falcons scored 50 vs. Duke in the second half, 56 vs. Purdue in the first half and scored an amazing 146 points in a conference game vs Barton in 2010.
Over Davis' career, he has coached 19 All-Americans and has had 64 former players sign professional contracts, including Danny Huffor, Dondray Walker, Aegir Steinarsson, Tony Davis and Mitch Riggs from Newberry.
Davis has an impressive list of former assistant coaches and players who have excelled at the college and professional levels, headlined by Buffalo Bills General Manager Brandon Beane, Purdue Head Coach Matt Painter, Sacramento Kings assistant coach Michael Longabardi, former University of Washington and UConn Associate Head Coach Raphael Chellious and former NC State Assistant Rob Moxley. He also mentored five Division I head coaches, 16 Division I assistant coaches, nine Division II head coaches, five junior college head coaches, two collegiate athletic directors and five professional general managers, coaches or scouts.
