For the first time in 13 years, Western Carolina will be announcing a new head coach of its men’s basketball program at a press conference slated for 1 p.m. at the Liston B. Ramsey Center. Director of Athletics Randy Eaton is expected to name Mark Prosser the 18th head coach of Western Carolina men’s basketball at that news conference this afternoon.
Former head coach Larry Hunter stepped down a day after Western Carolina’s Southern Conference quarterfinal round loss to Furman. The ledgendary head coach led the Catamounts to a 12-19 overall record in his final season and the No. 6 seed in the conference tournament after an 8-10 conference mark.
During his 13 seasons at the helm, Hunter helped the Catamounts to two tournament championship appearances, two non-conference postseason tournament appearances, and a pair of Southern Conference divisional titles in 2008-09 and 2009-10. His best team was the 2009-10 team.
The 2009-10 team finished 22-12. In an 88-71 victory over Samford in early February, he garnered his 700th win as a college basketball coach, and when he stepped down, had 702 wins.
Prosser, son of the late legendary head coach Skip Prosser, who spent time piling up wins at Xavier and Wake Forest in his career, is set to take the reins of the Catamounts after spending the past six seasons at Winthrop as the associate head basketball coach.
Prosser is no stranger to the Southern Conference, having spent time at Wofford under Mike Young in two different stints. In 2002-03, Prosser served his first stint under Mike Young before spending the next five years in a successful stint at Bucknell. The 2002-03 season was Young’s first at the helm of Wofford, and the Terriers were just starting to build their brand in the Southern Conference.
At Bucknell, Prosser helped lead the Bison to some historic success, including a 2004-05 Patriot League championship and one of the NCAA Tournament’s most memorable upsets, shocking No. 3 seed Kansas, 64-63. A year later, he was part of a staff that went 14-0 in Partiot League play, and earned as high as a No. 24 ranking in the Associated Press poll and garnered a No. 5 seed in the 2006 NCAA Tournament.
The Bison opened the 2006 NCAA Tournament with a 59-55 win over No. 8 seeded Arkansas before bowing out of the Big Dance with a 72-56 setback to top-seeded Memphis. The Bison finished the 2005-06 season with a 27-5 record. Prosser served under the mentorship of Pat Flannery during his time with the Bison.
In 2008, Prosser’s career would come full circle, as he returned to Wofford, where he would once again serve under Young, helping the Terriers to some of its most memorable successes as a college basketball program.
The Terriers would claim their first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance a year after Prosser’s return, as Wofford went 26-9 and won its first of what would be consecutive Southern Conference Tournament titles.
After four seasons at Wofford and having helped the progtam to a school-record 26 wins in 2009-10 and an inaugural NCAA Tournament appearance as a Division I member, Prosser moved on to the head coaching ranks for the first time in his career, taking the reins of Brevard College for the 2011-12 season. In his one season at Brevard, the Tornadoes struggled to a 5-23 overall record and just a 4-14 record in the South Atlantic Conference.
Following just one season at Brevard, Prosser decided to return to the Division I ranks, joining Pat Kelsey’s staff at Winthrop, where he was the associate head coach. Kelsey was a former assistant under Skip Prosser at Xavier.
After becoming Kelsey’s right-hand man on Sept. 1, 2013, Prosser helped the Eagles to a regular-season title in 2015-16, and a regular-season and tournament title in 2016-17. The Eagles finished the 2017-18 season with a 19-14 record and a third place, 12-6 mark in the Big South Conference.
Prosser became the second former Wofford assistant coach under Mike Young to graduate to the Division I head coaching ranks, joining Presbyterian’s Dustin Kerns, who will be entering his second season as the head coach of the Blue Hose in 2018-19.
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