Brandon Laird Title: Associate Head Coach Experience: Second Season Alma Mater: UC Davis, '01 Email: blaird@csus.edu Bio: Brandon Laird, who has 11 years of coaching experience under his belt, begins his second season as an assistant at Sacramento State in 2012-13, and first as the team's associate head coach. Laird is the program's recruiting coordinator while also assisting with on-floor coaching, day-to-day player administration, scouting, academics, player development, compliance and offseason workouts. Laird was part of a 2011-12 Sacramento State coaching staff that helped guide the program to its most overall victories since the 2006-07 season. In addition, the Hornets went 5-3 during the second half of Big Sky Conference play, won their most road games (4) since the 2005-06 season, set the Div. I-era record for highest field goal percentage (.451), swept a Big Sky road trip for the first time since 2006, and yielded a Div. I-era low 69.1 opponents’ points per game. In addition, freshman point guard Dylan Garrity was named the Big Sky’s Freshman of the Year after finishing seventh in the nation with an average of 6.9 assists per game. Laird spent the previous two years (2009-11) as an assistant at UC Davis where he worked with the guards and assisted in recruiting, scouting and on-floor coaching. In 2009-10, he helped coach the Aggies to 14 overall wins and eight Big West Conference victories, both high water marks for UC Davis since the program joined the Div. I ranks. Prior to UC Davis, Laird spent three years as head coach at Menlo College (2006-09). He led the Oaks to 18 victories in 2007-08, which were the most for the program since 1990. That team also won a school-record tying nine games in a row, won the Cal-Pac Conference Tournament and advanced to the NAIA national tournament for the third time in school history. Menlo also finished that season with a school-record 13 conference wins and a No. 29 national ranking. Prior to becoming head coach, the Sacramento native spent three years as an assistant with Menlo (2003-06) where he helped rebuild a program that went 4-22 his first season to 17-11 in his third year. Also during his tenure as assistant, the Oaks defeated a pair of Div. II programs, and his recruiting efforts landed six high school players and four junior college players prior to the 2004-05 season. His first collegiate coaching experience took place at UC Davis where Laird served on the staff during the 2002-03 season. He spent the previous year (2001-02) as an assistant at his high school alma mater (El Camino). A graduate of UC Davis, Laird played four seasons with the Aggies (1997-01). During his four-year tenure, he appeared in 85 games and helped the Aggies to a combined record of 93-24, including a 31-2 mark in 1997-98 when they captured the Division II national title. He was the recipient of the Captain’s Award (voted on by teammates) following the 2000-01 season. Laird graduated from UC Davis in 2001 with a degree in managerial economics and then added a master’s degree in 2005 from the United States Sports Academy.

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