Head Coach Dave Wilbers

Dave Wilbers
Head Coach

Dave Wilbers is a coach for life. From coaching high school football and basketball, to community college basketball and volleyball, to becoming an NCAA women's basketball coach, coaching is in Wilbers' blood.

Wilbers was named Tech's sixth women's head coach on April 30, 2007.

In the 15 years since, Arkansas Tech has remained a women's basketball powerhouse and has posted a 328-108 overall record (.751) and 204-71 record in conference play (.742). The Golden Suns have won 12 conference championships (regular season and tournament combined) under Wilbers and have reached the NCAA Division II Regionals nine times.

Wilbers Cutting Down a Net (2020-21)Wilbers has coached 34 all-conference selections, 33 all-conference academic team members, 5 conference MVP's, six all-region picks and seven all-Americans. Wilbers was also named the GAC Coach of the Year for the 2020-21 season. Nine times, Wilbers has won 20 or more games at Tech and twice has won 30 or more. In terms of national rankings, a Wilbers-led team has been nationally-ranked at any point in a season 10 times. Among those, he has guided the Golden Suns to the top of the rankings on a pair of occasions during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons.

Prior to coming to Tech, Wilbers spent six years as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Oral Roberts University, an NCAA Division I school in Tulsa, Okla., that is a member of the Mid-Continent Conference. While at ORU, Wilbers was responsible for recruiting three-straight heralded recruiting classes that helped the Golden Eagles to win two Mid-Con Tournament championships, two Mid-Con regular season titles and earn two berths in the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament.

Prior to Oral Roberts, Wilbers spent three seasons on Cindy Stein's staff at the University of Missouri of the Big 12 Conference, as the first assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. While at Missouri, the Lady Tigers made it to the Sweet 16 of the 2001 NCAA Basketball Tournament and finished with a 22-10 overall record. In his three years in Columbia, Mo., the Lady Tigers showed consistent improvement as they won 13 games in 1988-89, 18 games in 1989-90 and 22 games in 2000-01.

Before heading to Missouri, Wilbers served as the assistant women's basketball and head volleyball coach at Seward County Community College in Liberal, Kan., for five years (1993-98). While at Seward, Wilbers helped lead the women's basketball program to an overall record of 143-21 and four Jayhawk Conference Western Division Championships ('94, '96, '97 and '98). In addition, SCCC made two straight appearances (1996-97 and 1997-98) in the NJCAA Region IV Final Four.

In addition to his college coaching experience, Wilbers also spent one season (1991-92) as the head girls basketball and softball coach at Welch High School in Welch, Okla. He also served as an assistant football coach at WHS. He also spent one year (1990-91) coaching high school basketball at Putnam City High School in Putnam City, Okla.

A native of Kansas City, Mo., Wilbers is married to the former Christina Urton and the couple have two children, a daughter, Bailey and a son, Brett.