Experience in basketball business, relationships led Brandon Chappell to Arizona

By joining the Arizona Wildcats’ coaching staff this week, Brandon Chappell essentially agreed to annually pull top-tier talent out of a recruiting pot stirred by the transfer portal, NIL and, soon, revenue sharing.

It’s a fleeting, dizzying and sometimes maddening world. But, in a sense, Chappell has already lived the other side of all that.

Named the Wildcats’ newest assistant coach this week, Chappell began his coaching career 12 years ago after riding the European pro roller coaster, spending five seasons with four different German clubs in two different leagues, always evaluating where he might go next.

Things were always changing.

“The landscape of a player in Europe is very similar to the landscape of guys here now in the States,” Chappell said. “Now you have a guy who’s played for three or four different schools, and his college career is very similar to overseas basketball. It’s rare (there) that guys stay somewhere multiple years.

“Individually, as a player you want to springboard. You want to win, get good stats, and move up.”

Chappell says having learned that side of the business as a player has helped him better navigate recruiting as a coach, especially since NIL became legal in 2021-22, the year Chappell moved from being an assistant coach at his alma mater of Lamar to the same role at UNLV.

Chappell also has two old-school attributes that are likely to help Arizona: He has deep recruiting ties to Texas — he grew up, played and coached within the Big 12’s traditional footprint — and also knows how to build relationships.

UA associate head coach Jack Murphy found as much the moment Chappell arrived in Flagstaff 11 years ago to take a graduate assistant job with NAU, where Murphy was the head coach.

“I’ll never forget it,” Murphy said. “We had the team over at my house. It was the summer time. There was a knock on my door, and there’s Brandon, the first time I’d met him. Honestly, from that moment until today, he’s felt part of the family. He’s just got that type of personality. He’s an unbelievable human being. It’s hard for me to remember my life before I knew Brandon.”

Inside, Chappell had plenty of reason to feel uncomfortable that day. In part because he had no idea where he was.

“I had never heard of Flagstaff,” Chappell said. “Knew it was in Arizona. Knew it was two hours north of Phoenix. So I’m thinking it’s like Phoenix — it’s gonna be hot, it’s gonna be the desert. And then I’m up in the mountains.”

Chappell, 41, had arrived at NAU just two years after his five-year playing career in Germany ended in 2012. He spent parts of 2012 and 2013 working as a skills trainer in the Atlanta area, then spent the 2013-14 season working under a friend at Division II Armstrong (Ga.) State when he caught the coaching bug.

“I flirted with the (the idea of coaching), but didn’t think the time was going to come,” Chappell said. “After that one year, I was like, ‘Man, I like it. I like the college space. I’m eager to know more.’”

Chappell said he was advised the next step was to seek a graduate assistant job at a higher-level program so he could gain coaching experience in Division I. That took some scrambling.

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“I was on HoopDirt and all these different sites, just filling out applications,” Chappell said. “I got a call back from Murph and another one of the (NAU) assistants. I kind of count that as my first real experience. I wanted to learn, I wanted to grow, and Murph allowed me to do that two years as a GA.”

Chappell said Murphy gave him a variety of responsibilities, allowing him to help develop players on the floor while also making him a recruiting coordinator during his second season, even sending Chappell on the road for a weekend of recruiting at one point.

Along the way, Chappell picked up a postgrad degree in educational leadership from NAU, then became a full-time assistant at Division II Arkansas-Fort Smith in 2016-17. After a season there, he went back to Lamar to work under Tic Price, who had coached Southland Conference rival McNeese State when Chappell was a Lamar point guard.

Chappell spent the next four seasons at Lamar, where the Cardinals won 39 games over his first two seasons.

“He gave me a chance and I really had a chance to truly grow,” Chappell said of Price. “I think I’ve always been good at building relationships and player development, but at Lamar, I really had a chance to learn different things coaching wise.”

From there, Chappell’s NAU ties first paid off: Former ASU player Kevin Kruger, who was a NAU assistant for the same two seasons when Chappell was a GA, hired Chappell to become an assistant with the Rebels just as the NIL era started in 2021-22.

“We hit the ground running — transfer portal, the COVID deal, the beginning of NIL and we were able to put together a roster,” Chappell said.

Together, Kruger and Chappell rebuilt the Rebels’ roster with nine transfers, and UNLV won 18 games. That caught the eye of Texas coach Chris Beard, who knew of Chappell through mutual friends and hired him in 2022.

But Beard was fired midway through the 2022-23 season after a felony domestic violence arrest, leaving a staff that included Chappell and assistant Rodney Terry behind.

Terry took over as the Longhorns’ acting head coach and full-time head coach, while Chappell said he served as a mentor. The two helped Texas win the Big 12 Tournament title and reach the Elite Eight, followed by additional NCAA Tournament appearances the past two seasons, before Terry was fired in March and Chappell hit the market.

At Texas, Chappell said both Beard and Terry wanted staffers to “touch different parts of the program,” which is pretty much the philosophy UA coach Tommy Lloyd has for his assistants at Arizona. Among other duties, Chappell is expected to work with all UA players, scout opponents and, of course, recruit.

“He will fit in great with the culture that we have built,” Lloyd said in a statement when UA’s announced Chappell’s hiring on Monday.

After introducing Lloyd to Chappell at a recruiting event several years ago, Murphy said the two “just hung out” and Lloyd immediately expressed an interest in hiring Chappell someday.

Their relationship had been established. Maybe, despite all the changes in today’s game, that sort of thing matters just as much today as it did the day Chappell knocked on Murphy’s door in Flagstaff.

“I think the biggest difference is now is the people around (recruiting) — agents, shoe coaches, parents — are starting to understand that it’s almost like a business where you’re asking for this, you’re doing this or that, and that comes with a different level of responsibility,” Chappell said.

“But I think with the brand of Arizona, with the success, the history, and the current success with coach Lloyd, there are a lot of real basketball people out there that continue to want to get better and be a part of something that’s bigger than themselves.

“I’m excited to look for those kids who are good character and still have that purity of basketball. But also we understand it’s the business side, and lot of things have to check off.”