Nevada Wolf Pack men’s basketball head coach Steve Alford will retire at the conclusion of the 2026-27 season, the school announced on Thursday.
Alford is calling it a career after 36 seasons in the game, split between Missouri State, Iowa, New Mexico, UCLA, and the past eight being spent in Reno at Nevada. He has 724 career wins, the 10th-highest among active men’s basketball coaches and in the top 70 all-time in the sport.
In a school announcement,
Alford said:
“After 36 years, I feel like this is the right time to step away from the bench,” Alford announced via release. “Tanya and I have loved our time in Reno, and have embraced this amazing community and built lifelong friendships.
“I want to thank the University of Nevada for the opportunity to lead this program, and I am looking forward to finishing this season the right way, with a team I believe in. God has richly blessed our family in so many ways through basketball and we are very grateful. I’m excited to see God’s direction in the next chapter.”
His final season marks his first in the new-look Mountain West, as his Wolf Pack stayed and watched other teams made an exodus to the resurrected Pac-12. It feels poetic that, in the first season of a new Mountain West, Nevada says goodbye to a legend of what the Mountain West used to be.
Alford, as he enters his final season, has 292 victories in the Mountain West is the third-most all-time and the most among any standing MW head coach. He also has 143 conference wins, the second-most ever. He has also won two Mountain West Conference titles, four regular-season crowns, and was named league coach of the year three times.
For what its worth, I will always remember Alford’s love-hate relationship with the bats of Reno.
