LSU Gold

Kermit Davis, Jr. Season 2023-24

LSU
Kermit Davis, Jr.
Title
Associate Coach

Good friend, good recruiter, good coach.

All those factors played into the choice of Kermit Davis, Jr., as the associate coach when John Brady was selected to guide the LSU basketball program.

Davis enters his fifth season on the LSU staff after years of experience in all levels of the sport. Davis has been a part of extremely successful programs on both the junior college and Division I levels. He leads a proven LSU staff that has quickly become recognized as one of the best in the Southeastern Conference.

Davis was a graduate assistant at Mississippi State when Brady was an assistant coach under Bob Boyd at the Starkville school in 1988 and the pair remained together the next two years.

Davis was in his second stint as the head coach at Idaho before coming to LSU to take his present position.

In his first four years as LSU, Davis has been played an integral role with strategic development of the program as well as the recruiting efforts which have brought national recognition and the top players to the program.

In his first stint as the Vandals coach in 1988-89 and 1989-90, his squads posted two of the best overall single season records in school history, 25-6, both years.

Idaho, in the Big Sky Conference at the time, won back-to-back league titles for just the second time in school history and made consecutive NCAA appearances. For that, Davis was honored as the 1989 Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year. It was for that reason that Idaho lured him back for the 1996-97 season to try to rebuild the program to its previous status.

He came to LSU with a diverse and extensive basketball background. His father, Kermit Davis, Sr., was head coach at Mississippi State for seven seasons (1970-77). Junior played two seasons at MSU and then jumped headline into his father?s footsteps.

After his two-year stint as a graduate assistant at Mississippi State, he became the youngest junior college coach in the country when he took over the program at Southwest Mississippi at the age of 24. In two seasons (1985-86), he compiled a record of 39-20, compared to the school?s total of just 12 wins in the four seasons prior to his arrival.

Just like when John Brady went to New Orleans to serve under Tim Floyd (now with the Chicago Bulls), the Floyd connection played a major role in Davis? career as well. In April 1986, Floyd, then the head coach at Idaho, named Davis an assistant coach on his staff. The pair was together two seasons, putting together a 35-25 record.

Floyd then moved on to New Orleans and Davis assumed the head coaching job for the first time at Idaho, making him the youngest head catch in Division I at the age of 28.

In 1988-89, Idaho opened by winning 10 of its first 11 games and won the conference tournament and an NCAA berth with a win over Boise State. In the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Idaho put up a struggle before losing, 68-56, to Nevada Las Vegas as the 13th-seed.

In 1990, a 13-3 conference mark helped Davis? team to the regular season and league tournament titles along with an NCAA Tournament berth against Louisville in the NCAA West Regionals. The season included impressive road wins at Nebraska, Washington State and Montana.

After leaving Idaho in 1990, Davis served a one-year stint as head coach at Texas A&M (1990-91), two years as associate head coach at Chipola (Fla.) Junior College (1991-93), one year as head coach and athletic director at Chipola (1993-94, 27-5 record, No. 5 national ranking) and two seasons as associate head coach at Utah State (1994-96), before returning to Idaho as head coach for the 1996-97 season.

Davis? overall head coaching record at the Division I level is 71-49 and his total head coaching record stands at 137-74.

The Leaksville, Miss., native was born December 14, 1959, and he and his wife Betty, have two daughters, Ally (14) and Claire (9).

The Davis File

Year at LSU: Fifth
Birthdate: December 14, 1959
Age: 42
Hometown: Leaksville, Miss.
Wife: Betty
Children: Ally 14, Claire 9
College: BS, Mississippi State, 1982

College Coaching Experience
1982-84 Graduate Assistant, Mississippi State
1984-86 Head Coach, Southwest Mississippi Jr. College
1986-88 Assistant Coach, University of Idaho
1988-90 Head Coach, University of Idaho
1990-91 Head Coach, Texas A&M
1991-93 Associate Head Coach, Chipola (Fla.) Junior College
1993-94 Head Coach/AD, Chipola Junior College
1994-96 Associate Head Coach, Utah State
1996-97 Head Coach, University of Idaho
1997 — Associate Coach, LSU