Southern Arkansas University Athletics

Andy Sharpe enters into his tenth season as the head men’s basketball coach at Southern Arkansas.

A three-time TranSouth Conference Coach of the Year and 2010-11 Don Meyer Award Winner (NAIA National Coach of the Year), Sharpe has been a head coach for 16 years and has compiled a career mark of 297-189 for a .612 win percentage.

In his nine seasons at SAU, Sharpe is 129-123, but since the beginning of the 2014-15 season, Sharpe has turned the Muleriders into serious contenders in the Great American Conference as SAU has won 82 conference games and has finished in the top half of the standings in five of those seven seasons. The first two seasons in this recent stretch have seen the Muleriders post consecutive winning seasons for the first time since the 2000-01 and 2001-02 seasons.

In 2015-16, Sharpe’s Muleriders posted a 17-13 overall record and had a 13-9 mark in conference play. The 17 wins in 2015-16 would set a NCAA Division II standard for the Muleriders and were the most wins overall since 1991-92. Additionally, the 13 conference wins were also the most at SAU in the DII era (1995-96 first year in DII).

Three years later, the Muleriders bettered the program’s Division II wins record by going 19-10 with 14 conference wins in 2018-19; both new standards for the program.
However, this past season, Sharpe led the program into unchartered territory never before surveyed in the program’s NCAA history. The GAC Eastern Division Regular Season Co-Champion and GAC Tournament Runner Up, the 2020-21 Muleriders claimed a share of a regular season title for the first time under Sharpe and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history behind a 15-6 record overall.

As far as post-season play is concerned, Sharpe has led the Muleriders to the GAC Tournament all nine years at the helm and has advanced the team to the semi-finals three times with opening round wins in 2014, 2016 and 2021 and to the GAC Tournament Title Game in 2021. SAU is the only team to have made the GAC Tournament in all ten years which dates back to the year prior to Sharpe’s arrival in Magnolia.

So far at SAU, Sharpe has coached nine different all-conference players including 2020-21 GAC Player and Defensive Player of the Year/unanimous All-GAC First Team selection Aaron Lucas, 2014-15 GAC Defensive Player of the Year/All-GAC First-Team selection, Alre’k Brown and a pair of GAC Freshman of the Year winners in CJ Elkins (2015-16) and Jalen Brooks (2018-19). Additionally, Elkins was named to the GAC’s All-Decade Team in January of 2020.

Prior to his appointment at SAU, Sharpe spent five years as head coach at NAIA-affiliated Martin Methodist College in Pulaski, Tenn. While at Martin Methodist, Sharpe turned that program into a national title contender as his RedHawks made three trips to the NAIA National Tournament, advancing to the “Sweet Sixteen” in his final season and as far as the “Final Four” in 2010-11.

During his five-year tenure at Martin Methodist, Sharpe led the RedHawks to a 122-41 (.748) record, claiming two TranSouth Conference regular season and tournament championships. Sharpe also coached five All-America players while at Martin Methodist, including 5-10 guard James Justice, a two-time first-team honoree. Justice drew national fame when he was the “Dark Horse Dunker” at the 2012 Denny’s Slam Dunk championship at the State Farm College Slam Dunk and Three-Point championships in New Orleans, which was in conjunction with the NCAA men’s basketball championship tournament.

During his final two seasons at Martin Methodist, Sharpe’s teams spent 21 consecutive weeks ranked in the top 10 of the national poll.

In the 2010-11 season, Sharpe’s squad set school records with a 34-3 finish, and finished ranked sixth in the country. Their conference season championship was the first-ever for the school and they opened the season with a school-best 16-0 start. Sharpe’s 2009-10 team finished 18-13 on the year, while the 2008-09 squad was 22-10 and ranked as high as 16th. In Sharpe’s first year at Martin Methodist in 2007-08, he guided the team to a 25-8 mark, an appearance in the national tournament, and to a final season ranking of No. 11.

Prior to arriving at Martin Methodist, Sharpe began his collegiate coaching career in 2004-05 as an assistant at Emmanuel College in Franklin Springs, Ga., before taking over the program the following season and serving two years as head coach, compiling a 39-30 (.565) record.

He inherited a 4-28 program his first season and improved them to 14-18 in 2005-06, and then set the school record for wins with a 27-11 mark the next year, advancing the team to its first Southern States Athletic Conference tournament championship game, and being named the SSAC coach of the year.