WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT SHANE BURCAR

Shane Burcar was named the 26th head coach in program history on March 25, 2020 after serving as the interim coach of the Northern Arizona men's basketball program since June 2019. Burcar initially joined the NAU men's basketball coaching staff on April 10, 2018 as an assistant coach.

In his short time as head coach, Burcar has stressed the importance of academics and service in addition to success on the hardwood. NAU has earned the Team Academic Excellence Award from the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) in each three of his first five seasons after having not received the honor in the first seven years of the recognition. Additionally, seven different players have combined for 11 NABC Honors Court awards, including the program's first three-time honoree in Nik Mains, under Burcar's watch.

In Burcar's fourth season as head coach for the 2022-23 season, the team reached its first Big Sky Tournament Championship since 2008. Bucar coached Jalen Cone to his second Big Sky third-team honors in the regular season while Cone and Carson Towt would go on to be named to the All-Big Sky Tournament team in the Lumberjacks historic run. The Jacks entered the tournament as the No. 9 seed, winning three straight, highlighted by a Sportscenter Top Ten No. 1 play in Oakland Fort's buzzer-beating three-pointer to upset the No. 1 Eastern Washington Eagles and advance to the semifinals. 

Coach Burcar coached four different players to a total of five all-conference honors in his first three years as head coach. In 2021-22, Jalen Cone - an All-Big Sky Third Team selection - had one of the most prolific offensive seasons by a Lumberjack ever, scoring the second-most points in a season (602) and ranking in the top 50 nationally in numerous categories including points and three-pointers.

Cone's exploits followed a decorated season by Cameron Shelton the year prior in which he ranked 37th in the country in scoring on his way to All-Big Sky First Team and NABC All-District 6 Second Team honors. Shelton was the first Lumberjack since 2015 to earn a spot on the All-Big Sky First Team and All-District distinction.
 
A year after Burcar led the Lumberjacks to their best campaign in five seasons as NAU's interim head coach, he navigated the program through the COVID-19 challenged 2020-21 season that ended on a high note with NAU’s first conference tournament victory since 2015 with a win over Portland State in the first round.
 
Burcar served as NAU's interim head coach during the 2019-20 season and immediately led the Lumberjacks to their best campaign since 2014-15. The Lumberjacks finished 16-14 overall and 10-10 in conference play with both win totals serving as the program's most in five years. In fact, the 16 overall wins surpassed the program's combined total from the two previous seasons. Of 59 Division I programs that were led by new head coaches in 2019-20, NAU was in the top five in win improvement among programs that finished with a winning record as the 'Jacks went from 10 to 16 victories from 2018-19 to 2019-20.
 
Despite being named the interim head coach in June prior to the start of the season, Burcar, a 2019-20 finalist for the Joe B. Hall Award, presented annually to the top first-year coach in Division I college basketball, had the Lumberjacks in contention for a top five seed and first round bye in the conference tournament until the final week of the regular season. Picked eighth in the Big Sky Preseason Polls, NAU finished in a tie for fifth.
 
The 'Jacks posted their first five-game winning streak since the start of the decade in 2019-20 and also posted their best non-conference record (6-3) and first back-to-back non-conference road wins in nine years. NAU also claimed its first Big Sky road trip sweep in six years and posted its first victories over perennial conference contenders Montana and Weber State since 2014 and 2015 respectively. The former also occurred with Montana residing atop the conference in late February.
 
In addition to coaching Shelton, Brooks DeBisschop and Bernie Andre to All-Big Sky honors – the program's highest all-conference total in five years – Burcar also emphasized service (over 200 community service hours in Flagstaff) and academics (3.07 team GPA for fall 2019 semester). DeBisschop would go on to become the first NAU men's basketball First Team Academic All-American at season's end.
 
Burcar arrived in Flagstaff after a highly successful 12-year tenure as the head coach at Mesa High School in Mesa, Ariz. In his first season on the Lumberjack staff during the 2018-19 season, Burcar worked with NAU's offense and the 'Jacks immediately showed significant improvements.
 
Nationally, the Lumberjacks' scoring offense rose from 330th to 157th (65.6 to 73.0) and they saw similar jumps of 100-plus spots in field goal percentage, three-point percentage, three-pointers per game, assists per game and assist-to-turnover ratio from the year prior.
 
During his time at Mesa High School, Burcar guided the Jackrabbits to a 277-110 record highlighted by winning the 2016 Arizona DI State Championship. His Mesa teams won seven regular season region championships, qualified for the state tournament on 10 occasions and made two Final Four appearances.
 
Burcar himself was a seven-time Region Coach of the Year and two-time State Coach of the Year while his 277 wins were the most in Mesa High School history. He consistently developed student-athletes who would go on to play at the Division I level and professionally including Lee Cummard (BYU) and Jahii Carson (Arizona State). Both Cummard and Carson were State Player of the Year awardees at Mesa before proceeding to earn conference Player of the Year honors in the Mountain West and Pac-12 respectively and onto professional careers with in the NBA Summer League and overseas.
 
Burcar, a well-respected coach in the Phoenix Valley, also previously had a one-year head coaching stint at Westwood High School in Mesa and assistant coaching stints at the JUCO level at Mesa Community College and Fort Scott Community College (Kan.) during his coaching career.
 
Originally from Hancock, Mich., Burcar is joined in Flagstaff by his wife, Julie, and four children, Bella, Brisson, Brooklyn and Bennett.