Chris Victor on Joy, Unity and Defense (EP341)

In this week's basketball coaching conversation, Seattle University head coach Chris Victor joins the Basketball Podcast to share insights on playing with joy, unity and defense.

Chris Victor enters his fourth year as Head Coach of the Redhawks in 2024-25. The season will mark his eighth year overall at Seattle University as he spent four seasons as Associate Head Coach. Over the past three seasons, Victor has compiled a 66-35 record, including three straight seasons of 20 wins or more – the first such streak since 1957-59.

Chris Victor has an impressive head coaching record of 169 wins and 74 losses, boasting a winning percentage of .695. In 2022, he was honored as the Don Haskins WAC Coach of the Year.

Most recently, the 2023-34 concluded in the program's first-ever postseason tournament championship as the Redhawks won four games in five days to clinch the 2024 Ro College Basketball Invitational (CBI) in Daytona Beach, Fla. The postseason run led the Redhawks to a 23-win season for the second time in the past three years under Victor, as well as a 117 NET ranking – the highest such end-of-season ranking for the program.

Prior to Seattle U, Victor served as an assistant coach at Eastern Washington for two seasons. His first season on the Eagle coaching staff was punctuated by Eastern’s first-ever victory in a national postseason tournament as a member of NCAA Division I when the Eagles beat Pepperdine, 79-72, in the College Basketball Invitational. The Eagles went 22-12 and returned to the CBI in 2016-17.

Victor’s first head coaching position was at Citrus College in Glendora, Calif., where he led the Owls of the Western State Conference and California Community College Athletic Association to 103 victories over five seasons. He won 73 percent of his games overall (103-39) and 73 percent in league play (44-16) with a pair of CCCAA Final Four appearances and one league title.

Victor spent four seasons as a top assistant at Concordia University in Irvine, Calif., under Head Coach Ken Ammann. In that span, Concordia went 118-23, won three out of four Golden State Athletic Conference Championships and made four-straight appearances in the NAIA National Tournament, including appearing in the national title game in 2006-07.