The Pacific Tigers are three seasons into one of the most fascinating coaching experiments in college basketball — and this year is the one that could change everything. When Dave Smart took over in March 2024, he arrived with a résumé no other American coach could touch: 13 U Sports national championships at Carleton University in Ottawa, a 591-48 record against Canadian competition, 10 national coach-of-the-year honors, and a stint as a Texas Tech assistant under Grant McCasland. Pacific had just gone 6-26 with an 0-16 West Coast Conference record under the fired Leonard Perry, and Smart was hired to do in Stockton what he'd done in Ottawa: build a program from the ground up.
Year two showed the plan working. The 2025-26 Tigers finished 18-14 overall and 8-10 in the WCC — a nine-win improvement over Smart's first season — and posted season sweeps of both Oregon State and Pepperdine. In the road win at Pepperdine, Pacific's 33-point margin was its largest conference road victory since rejoining the league in 2013-14. Six seniors were honored on Senior Day: KC Ibekwe, Isaac Jack, Jaden Clayton, Elias Ralph, Justin Rochelin, and TJ Wainwright. That night told the story of the rebuild — veterans who bought in, a system taking root, and a program trending hard in the right direction.
What's happening now is the handoff. The 2026-27 roster keeps the spine of the turnaround: senior guards TJ Wainwright — the Long Beach State transfer who became the team's offensive engine — and Alexis Marmolejos, the Lamar transfer with deep range; junior guards Kajus Kublickas (the Florida transfer from Kaunas, Lithuania) and Noah Budu; and a frontcourt anchored by 6-foot-11 senior KC Ibekwe, the Washington and Oregon State veteran who finally found a home in Stockton. Smart's recruiting has gone global in the Carleton tradition: Israeli guard Eyal Harel, Lithuanian forward Kris Keinys, Canadian forwards Augustas Brazdeikis and Jaion Pitt, and freshmen like Kellen Hampton (Moreau Catholic) and Carlsheon Young (Dynamic Prep) give the roster length, skill, and shooting at every spot.
The Alex G. Spanos Center is where this all plays out. Opened on September 9, 1981 — a $7 million arena named for late Pacific alumnus and Chargers owner Alex Spanos — the 6,150-seat building has been the Tigers' home for more than four decades. Renovated from floor to ceiling in 2017-18 with a redesigned court, LED lighting, and twin video boards, it holds a place in Stockton sports history: on October 15, 2008, it even hosted an NBA preseason exhibition between the Clippers and Kings. For Pacific basketball, it's the only home that matters.
But the program's true identity was forged long before the Spanos Center — and its greatest figure is a 7-footer who never played a minute in it. Michael Olowokandi starred at Pacific in the late 1990s before becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the 1998 NBA Draft, a Los Angeles Clipper and the highest-drafted player in program history. The Kandi Man put Pacific on the national map, and the Tigers have been chasing that spotlight ever since.
The golden era came under Bob Thomason, who coached the Tigers for 25 seasons from 1988 to 2013. Pacific's March résumé under Thomason is the envy of the mid-major world: nine NCAA tournament appearances (1966, 1967, 1971, 1979, 1997, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2013), three straight Dances from 2004 to 2006, and Sweet Sixteen runs in 1966, 1967, and 1971 — plus an Elite Eight in 1967. The 2004-05 team was the crown jewel: 27-4, a perfect 18-0 in the Big West, ranked No. 22 in the nation. And the program's signature March moment came in 2005, when the eighth-seeded Tigers stunned Pittsburgh 79-71 in the first round — disciplined, fearless, and perfectly prepared, Pacific basketball at its absolute best.
Thomason's teams played a beautiful, precise style — patient offense, stout defense, and seniors who'd grown up together in the system. In an era before the transfer portal, Pacific was the model of program-building: recruit the overlooked, develop relentlessly, win in March. The 2013 team added one more Dance ticket under Thomason, winning the Big West tournament for a date with Miami — proof the program's March DNA endured.
After Thomason came turbulence: Ron Verlin's scandal-marred exit in 2016, Damon Stoudamire's five seasons (the former Arizona star and NBA guard left for Boston College), and Leonard Perry's three-year slide to 29-65. Smart's arrival ended the drift, and year three is where the Dave Smart method — defense-first, depth-driven, relentlessly prepared — is supposed to fully flower. In the WCC's shadow of Gonzaga and Saint Mary's, Pacific has always been the program fighting for the third chair — and occasionally pulling it out from under somebody. If Smart's track record means anything, the Tigers won't be in anyone's shadow for long.