# Ritchie McKay

Ritchie Lawrence McKay (born April 22, 1965) is an American basketball coach who is in his second stint as the head coach of the Liberty Flames of Liberty University. McKay for the previous six seasons had been the associate head coach to Tony Bennett for the Virginia Cavaliers at the University of Virginia. He had previously been the head coach of New Mexico, Oregon State, Colorado State, and Portland State.
On April 3, 2009, McKay was hand-selected by Bennett and lured from his head coaching position at Liberty to become associate head coach at Virginia. On April 1, 2015, he returned as head coach of the Liberty Flames. McKay holds the Liberty school record for single-season wins, with his team attaining a record of 30–4 (as of March 9, 2020) in the 2019–20 season after winning the ASUN Conference regular season and tournament championships.

## Life and sports

McKay got his first head coaching job with Portland State. After a poor first year, McKay led the team to a third-place conference finish in his second season. He used that success as a springboard to his next coaching job, this time at Colorado State. He stayed two seasons there before heading to Oregon State, and then another two at Oregon State before accepting the head coaching position at New Mexico. While there, he experienced mixed success. In 2005, his team won the Mountain West tournament and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. That successful season helped launch forward Danny Granger to an NBA career. Still, McKay couldn't turn New Mexico into a consistent program, and in February 2007, he was fired.
McKay then took a job at Liberty University, where he took the Flames to Big South Conference semifinals in back-to-back years. His second-year, with the help of Seth Curry, McKay led the LU to a Division I school-record 23 wins and a bid to the inaugural CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament. After the season ended, Curry transferred to Duke University, and McKay's longtime friend Tony Bennett was hired as head coach of the Virginia Cavaliers. Bennett then asked McKay to join his staff as his associate head coach, and McKay accepted. On April 1, 2015, McKay was selected to return to Liberty University as head coach.
En route to a school-record 28 wins, McKay's Flames defeated the storied UCLA Bruins on their home court in Los Angeles by 15 points, prompting the immediate firing of UCLA head coach Steve Alford in December 2018, before the Pac-12 Conference season even began. Ironically, it was Alford who had replaced McKay at New Mexico after his firing there nearly 12 years earlier. The following year, he was the 2019 recipient of the Jim Phelan Award.

### Personal life

McKay graduated from Westwood High School, and played college basketball at Seattle Pacific University, where he set the single-season and career record for steals, and he was third in career assists. McKay has a wife, Julie, daughter, Ellie, and sons Luke and Gabriel.

## Head coaching record

Statistics overview :
| Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason |
| Portland State Vikings (Big Sky Conference) (1996–1998) ||||||
| 1996–97 | Portland State | 9–17 | 6–10 | 7th | |
| 1997–98 | Portland State | 15–12 | 10–6 | T–3rd | |
| Portland State: | Portland State: | 24–29 (.453) | 16–16 (.500) | | |
| Colorado State Rams (Western Athletic Conference) (1998–1999) ||||||
| 1998–99 | Colorado State | 19–11 | 7–7 | T–4th (Mountain) | NIT Quarterfinals |
| Colorado State Rams (Mountain West Conference) (1999–2000) ||||||
| 1999–00 | Colorado State | 18–12 | 8–6 | T–4th | |
| Colorado State: | Colorado State: | 37–23 (.617) | 15–13 (.536) | | |
| Oregon State Beavers (Pacific-10 Conference) (2000–2002) ||||||
| 2000–01 | Oregon State | 10–20 | 4–14 | T–9th | |
| 2001–02 | Oregon State | 12–17 | 4–14 | 9th | |
| Oregon State: | Oregon State: | 22–37 (.373) | 8–28 (.222) | | |
| New Mexico Lobos (Mountain West Conference) (2002–2007) ||||||
| 2002–03 | New Mexico | 10–18 | 4–10 | 7th | |
| 2003–04 | New Mexico | 14–14 | 5–9 | T–5th | |
| 2004–05 | New Mexico | 26–7 | 10–4 | 2nd | NCAA Division I Round of 64 |
| 2005–06 | New Mexico | 17–13 | 8–8 | 5th | |
| 2006–07 | New Mexico | 15–17 | 4–12 | T–8th | |
| New Mexico: | New Mexico: | 82–69 (.543) | 31–43 (.419) | | |
| Liberty Flames (Big South Conference) (2007–2009) ||||||
| 2007–08 | Liberty | 16–16 | 7–7 | 4th | |
| 2008–09 | Liberty | 23–12 | 12–6 | 3rd | CIT Quarterfinals |
| Liberty Flames (Big South Conference) (2015–2018) ||||||
| 2015–16 | Liberty | 13–19 | 10–8 | T–5th | |
| 2016–17 | Liberty | 21–14 | 14–4 | 3rd | CIT Quarterfinals |
| 2017–18 | Liberty | 22–15 | 9–9 | T–5th | CIT Semifinals |
| Liberty Flames (ASUN Conference) (2018–2023) ||||||
| 2018–19 | Liberty | 29–7 | 14–2 | T–1st | NCAA Division I Round of 32 |
| 2019–20 | Liberty | 30–4 | 13–3 | T–1st | NCAA Canceled* |
| 2020–21 | Liberty | 23–6 | 11–2 | 1st | NCAA Division I Round of 64 |
| 2021–22 | Liberty | 22–11 | 12–4 | 1st (East) | |
| 2022–23 | Liberty | 27–9 | 15–3 | T–1st | NIT Second Round |
| Liberty Flames (Conference USA) (2023–present) ||||||
| 2023–24 | Liberty | 18–14 | 7–9 | T–4th | |
| 2024–25 | Liberty | 28–6 | 13–5 | 1st | NCAA Division I |
| Liberty: | Liberty: | 272–133 (.672) | 137–62 (.688) | | |
| Total: | Total: | 437–291 (.600) | | | |
| National champion   Postseason invitational champion   Conference regular season champion   Conference regular season and conference tournament champion  Division regular season champion  Division regular season and conference tournament champion  Conference tournament champion ||||||
*The 2020 NCAA tournament was canceled due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.