Twitter: @BookerTHarris
Booker Harris joined the Academy of Art men's basketball coaching staff as associate head coach in September 2021.
Boasting more than 20 years of experience as a player, coach, and administrator at the NCAA Division I and II levels including a recent 10-year stint at the helm of Dominican University of California men’s basketball, Harris, who earned his 100th career victory ironically against ART U on Dec. 19, 2019, reunited with Head Coach Scott Waterman and his staff at Academy of Art.
With the 2023-24 season closed out after earning a Pacific West Conference Regular Season Championship title for the first time in school history as they tied the most wins the squad has recorded in the regular season (20), Booker once again helped his team set numerous new program records as the team delivered the highest scoring average in the program's history with 80.4 points per contest. On the defensive end, the squad also broke the all-time record in steals average for the program as well, collecting 10.7 steals per game, while also blocking the second-most total shots (3.3). Over the course of the season, four ART U players put together a total of seven PacWest weekly awards, while three members would go on to earn All-PacWest team selections, two of which being First Team. In addition, Booker assisted coaching Latrell Williams in a career-season, as he was the first PacWest player to earn both
Player of the Year and Defender of the Year in the same season, all while Jamal Fuller earned an additional second team selection to both the
NABC All-West Region and D2CCA All-West Region teams after leading the conference in points per game.
In a strong encore to ART U's historic 2021-22 season, Harris helped guide the Urban Knights to another in 2022-23 as Academy of Art went 22-10 overall and 14-6 in Pacific West Conference play for two new program record win totals. ART U won its first four games of the year and later closed the regular season with a six-game win streak before making it seven straight with an
opening-round victory over Pacific West Conference Tournament host
Chaminade. ART U then collected its first ever at-large bid to make its second consecutive appearance in the NCAA Division II West Regional, where the Knights earned an
overtime triumph in the opening round over Saint Martin's. Along the way, Academy of Art earned six PacWest weekly selections (three Knights accounting for five Defender of the Week honors) as well as three All-PacWest Team awards including
Klay Brown and Mike Asante on the
All-PacWest Second Team and Will Balata on the Third Team. Program records for the Urban Knights in 2022-23 included: being ranked in the NCAA West Region every week of the season while also being nationally ranked once in the D2SIDA poll and receiving votes in the NABC poll on Dec. 1; total wins (22); regular season wins (20); seven-game winning streak; wins by double digits (14); 30-point victories (four); 90-point games (10); rebounds (1,265); scoring margin (+8.2); scoring average (79.7 ppg). Additionally, ART U was still in the top-10 of multiple statistical categories including steals (327, second; first: 2021-22, 331) and scoring defense (71.5, third).
A memorable first season on staff for Harris saw quite a bit of history made as the program achieved a new record 20 victories, its first ever Pacific West Conference Tournament Championship, and the Urban Knights' first berth in the NCAA Division II Tournament. A six-game win streak began in late November and was highlighted by ART U's first regular season win over a NCAA DI opponent with a
79-60 victory at UC Davis on Nov. 28. Prior to rattling off five straight wins in early February, the team had its fifth Urban Knight be named
PacWest Defender of the Week, giving the squad seven on the season (both of which are
PacWest and ART U records). Head Coach Scott Waterman was named
PacWest Coach of the Year while Klay Brown earned
PacWest Defender of the Year and Latrell Williams made the
All-PacWest Second Team. Playing three games in four days as the #4 seed in the PacWest Tournament, Academy of Art
won a best-of-three season meetings with tourney host Fresno Pacific,
topped #1 seed Point Loma on a clutch overtime 3-pointer by Brown, then
bested #2 seed Azusa Pacific in the championship game with Mike Asante being named tournament MVP alongside PacWest All-Tournament Team selections Brown and Williams. The Knights would make their
NCAA Tournament debut against No. 15 Chico State. By year's end, ART U had set numerous program records, including: overall wins (20), points scored (2,449), rebounds (1,203), scoring margin (+2.7; only positive scoring margin in program history), and field goal percentage defense (42.2 percent). Additionally, the Knights set a new program best in steals with 331 (fourth in NCAA DII) and steals per game at 10.3 (fourth in NCAA DII). The 331 steals are also a new
PacWest record, topping the
previous record of 328 set by Concordia during the 2018-19 season. Meanwhile, the Knights also set their second-best program marks in scoring average (77.6 ppg) and assists (423).
In just his first three seasons with the Penguins, Harris transformed a team that went 4-22 before his arrival, to 11-18 in the 2011-12 season and 16-10 in the 2012-13 season, earning the No. 4 seed in the Pacific West Championship Tournament and PacWest Co-Coach of the Year. His squad continued to progress, finishing the 2013-14 season at 22-8, earning second place in the conference en route to the PacWest Championship game. During his time at Dominican, which overlapped with Waterman from 2017-19, Harris saw 10 of his players earn All-PacWest Team honors and had his squads collect eight NABC Team Excellence Awards.
Prior to Dominican, Harris spent two seasons as the top assistant coach for NCAA DII perennial powerhouse Metro State in Denver. In addition to winning the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference East Division Tournament title and achieving a top 25 national ranking, Harris helped the Roadrunners post back-to-back 20+ win seasons in 2010 and 2011 with the latter culminating in a NCAA Tournament second round appearance.
Before Metro State, Harris was on the sidelines as the director of basketball operations for two seasons at NCAA DI University of San Diego. In 2008, the Toreros won the West Coast Conference Tournament and upset UConn in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
A member of a championship team at Cal State San Bernardino, Harris was an assistant coach for four seasons when the Coyotes compiled an 86-28 record, setting a California Collegiate Athletic Association record with six consecutive conference titles. In 2006-07, CSUSB won the NCAA West Region and advanced to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament. Between 2003 and 2007, the Coyotes had one All-American and 10 All-CCAA First Team honorees.
Harris began his coaching career in 2001-02 as an assistant coach at Sonoma State where he earned his master’s degree in Business Administration in 2003. He and Waterman first worked together in 2002 when Harris was a strength and condition coach at Long Beach State.
A native of San Francisco, Harris was a member of the University of San Francisco Dons’ last NCAA Division I tournament team in 1998. A two-time member of the WCC All-Academic Team, Harris played for Head Coach Phil Mathews at USF where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in 1999. The 6-foot-1 guard played three seasons for the Dons and was a member of the 1998 WCC Tournament Championship team.
