Mike Schrage eyes deep postseason run as regular season comes to end
ELON, N.C. (BVM) — Mike Schrage is looking to finish off the regular season strong before taking his team to Washington D.C. for the Colonial Athletic Association basketball tournament. Schrage is hoping to repeat last year’s historic run to the championship game, but with a different result.聽
Schrage started his basketball career as a manager and student assistant as an undergraduate student at Indiana University Bloomington. He served in that role for all four years while earning a degree in kinesiology under the direction of head coach Bob Knight. After graduating from Indiana, Schrage spent one season as the director of basketball operations at Ole Miss for head coach Rod Barnes.聽
Following the 1999 season, Schrage moved to Durham, North Carolina to serve as the Duke basketball academic and recruiting coordinator. He served in that role for three years before becoming the director of basketball operations under head coach Mike Krzyzewski. In that role he oversaw many aspects of the team including practice coordination and assisting Kryzyzewski in day to day operations.
After learning from Krzyzewski for eight seasons, Schrage accepted an assistant coaching role under head coach Johnny Dawkins at Stanford. Having earned valuable recruiting experience, Scharge was able to recruit 15 top-100 recruits, assisting in a Sweet 16 appearance in 2014.
In 2016, Schrage spent one season with Butler under coach Chris Holtmann. He assisted the team to its best finish since 2011, with their loss in the NCAA tournament to the eventual national champion, the North Carolina Tar Heels. His recruiting skills continued to impress as he signed the best recruiting class in program history.聽
After just one season in Indianapolis, Schrage followed Holtmann to Ohio State as an assistant coach. His two seasons with the Buckeyes produced two trips to the NCAA tournament. In 2018 Schrage helped to sign a top-25 class followed by an even better top-10 class in 2019.
On April 5, 2019, with his 20 years of experience in college basketball, Schrage was named to be the 18th head coach in Elon University program history. In his debut season, Schrage had a 13-21 record and led the Phoenix to their first ever CAA tournament semifinals.聽
Last season, Schrage took the Phoenix even further and led his team to the first CAA tournament championship game in program history. This followed Schrage鈥檚 first winning record, going 10-9 in the regular season. The Phoenix set conference history by being the first eight-seed to win three games to advance to the championship. The team finished the season ranked No. 1 in the CAA in defense, allowing only 65 points per game.
Schrage also makes sure his student-athletes succeed off the court as the Phoenix have maintained a team GPA above 3.0 throughout his tenure. He has worked with assistant coach Jonathan Holmes and Allen Payne for all three seasons at Elon. The coaching staff brought on assistant coach Noel Gillespie for the 2021-22 season.
The Phoenix have struggled in the first part of the regular season with a 6-16 record. While all six wins have come at home, the Phoenix will need to find a way to win on the road if they want to make a run in the conference tournament.聽
