Ben Braun
	Position: Head Coach Alma Mater: Wisconsin, 1975

In three seasons at the helm of the Rice University basketball program, Ben Braun has positioned the Owls for the future.

Starting with the Owls' 2008 signing class, which ESPN.com ranked No. 3 among NCAA Division I mid-major programs, Braun's staff has assembled three straight highly-touted recruiting classes.

This past season, the staff's work on the recruiting trail as well as on the practice court certainly became apparent.

With a 14-18 record, Rice posted the most victories since the 2006-07 season and the team's 5-11 conference mark doubled the program's total conference wins from the past three combined seasons. Along the way, the Owls beat LSU and TCU in back-to-back games, swept cross-town rival Houston for the first time since 1993 and posted its first series win over a Memphis team which would advance to the NCAA Tournament.

The Owls won a first-round game at the Conference USA Championship for the second time in three seasons under Braun.

For the 2011-12 season, Rice will return its top four scorers from a year ago.

Arsalan Kazemi and Tamir Jackson were members of the 2008 recruiting class. Kazemi is coming off a sophomore season in which he was named Second Team All-Conference USA while Jackson has started all 63 games of his career and with a 12.9 scoring average and 209 assists in two seasons, is on the verge of becoming one of the Owls' all-time leading playmakers.

In addition to Kazemi and Jackson, Connor Frizzelle enters his senior year already having scored 900 career points while fellow senior Lucas Kuipers started all but one game last year.

In 2011, Frizzelle and Kuipers also highlighted the Owls' success in the classroom as both were named to the Conference USA All-Academic Team. Dating back to his 12 seasons as the head coach at the University of California, Braun has now had student-athletes earn conference all-academic honors a total of 20 times. Rice has had at least one C-USA All-Academic selection each of the past five years which is unequaled by any other conference basketball opponent.

Rice student-athletes were named the Conference USA Scholar Athlete of the Year for men's basketball each of the last three seasons. Kuipers won the award last year while Frizzelle was this year's recipient. Aleks Perka began the Owls' three-year run of C-USA Scholar Athlete of the Year selectees in 2009.

Also during his tenure at Rice, Braun has had a total of 11 student-athletes named to the Conference USA Commissioner's Honor Roll a total of 17 times.

Rice Basketball received Conference USA's 2011 Sport Academic Award which is annually recognizes the team with the highest grade point average for each conference-sponsored sport.

The Owls announced another stellar recruiting class ahead of the 2011-12 season. Joining the Owls this year is combo guard Julian DeBose, point guard Dylan Ennis and forwards Seth Gearhart, Ahmad Ibrahim and Jarelle Reischel.

Ben Braun

Success on the Court
One of the winningest active Division I coaches, Braun has more than 30 years of head coaching experience and has had unequaled success everywhere he has been. He begins his fourth season at Rice with a 584-452 overall record (.564).

During his 12-year tenure at Cal, Braun directed the Bears to five NCAA Tournament berths and three trips to the NIT. He led the 1998 Bears to a berth in the NCAA Sweet 16 and to an NIT championship in 1999.

In his final season at Cal, Braun coached the Bears to the second round of the NIT before losing to eventual champion Ohio State.

While at the University of California, two of his players earned Pac-10 Player of the Year honors - Ed Gray in 1997 and Sean Lampley in 2001 - while Leon Powe was the 2004 Pac-10 Freshman of the Year. Overall, Braun's players received All-Pac-10 status nine times, Pac-10 All-Freshman notice on seven occasions and Pac-10 All-Academic accolades 15 times.

As a result of his success, not only at Cal, but during previous head coaching stops at Eastern Michigan and Siena Heights, Braun heads into his fourth season at Rice ranked 13th among all active Division I coaches with his 584 career victories. He ranks in the Top 50 on the NCAA's list of all-time winningest Division I men's basketball coaches by victories (No. 45).

Braun was 219-154 in his 12 seasons at Cal.

The 1997 Pac-10 Coach of the Year and a finalist for the 2003 Naismith National Coach of the Year, Braun has posted a 584-452 career record. He finished his Cal career second only to Nibs Price (1925-54, 449-294) in both longevity and wins and his Cal winning percentage of .587 was the best at the school since Hall of Famer Pete Newell guided the Bears to a 119-44 mark from 1955-60.

Generally regarded as one of college basketball's top teachers and strategists, Braun brought his energetic style of coaching to Cal in September, 1996. During his initial season, Braun took a team that was predicted to finish in the conference's lower half, molded it into one that tied for second in the league and reached the NCAA Sweet 16 with tournament victories over Princeton and Villanova. In addition, the 23-9 overall mark gave Braun a school record for most wins by a Bear coach in his first year with the program.

In 1998-99, Braun's club became the first Cal team ever to beat three Top 10 schools in the same season with victories over North Carolina, UCLA and Arizona during the course of the year. Then, after earning a bid to the NIT, the Bears went on a 5-0 run to capture the title - Cal's first postseason tournament championship since the Bears won the 1959 NCAA crown. Cal finished the 1998-99 campaign with a 22-11 record.

A year later, Braun took a freshman-dominated squad back to the postseason as the Bears reached the quarterfinals of the NIT. On Jan. 15, 2000, he picked up his 400th career victory with a 71-65 win at Oregon State. In 2000-01, the Bears returned to the NCAA Tournament and finished with a 20-11 record. Lampley - Braun's first recruit at Cal - became the school's all-time leading scorer late in his senior campaign with 1,776 points.

The Bears again won 23 games and tied for second in the Pac-10 race in 2001-02. Cal reached the semifinals of the conference tournament by defeating UCLA in the opening round and earned a No. 6 seed in the NCAA playoffs, where the Bears toppled Penn before falling to Pittsburgh.

In 2003, Cal reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament behind All-Pac-10 forwards Joe Shipp and Amit Tamir. Shipp ended his career holding third place on the Bears' all-time scoring list, while teammate Brian Wethers finished in the No. 15 position.

Behind tournament MVP Leon Powe, Cal defeated USC and Oregon to reach the Pac-10 Tournament final for the first time ever in 2006. The Bears then earned a No. 7 regional seed in the NCAA Tournament and finished the year with a 20-11 mark. On Nov. 21, 2005, Cal defeated Long Beach State, 88-69, to give Braun his 500th career win.

Braun's 2007 Cal team fought off injuries to a pair of key post players to reach the semifinals of the Pac-10 Tournament for the fourth time in six years. The Bears upset top-seed and fourth-ranked UCLA, 76-69, in overtime in the quarterfinals, and freshman Ryan Anderson was voted to the all-tournament team.

Twice during his final season at Cal, the Bears defeated nationally-ranked opponents, including a 69-64 upset on the road of ninth-ranked Washington State. Sophomore Ryan Anderson was an all Pac-10 selection.

Braun already has 34 years of experience as a head coach, including 11 highly-successful years at Eastern Michigan, where he guided the Eagles to four postseason berths, including three NCAA appearances. During his tenure there, Braun accumulated a record of 185-132, averaging almost 18 wins per season, and was named Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year three times. In addition, Braun coached at Siena Heights College for eight years and took the NAIA school to a 148-103 record and five postseason tournaments.

Braun's players proved to be successful both on the court and in the classroom, with Golden Bears earning Pac-10 All-Academic recognition 15 times under his direction. In 2001, three players - Morgan Lingle, Dennis Gates and Ryan Forehan-Kelly - were first-team selections, while Donte Smith was an honorable mention pick which gave Cal more than twice as many all-academic members as any other school in the conference. The Bears had at least one all-academic pick in each of Braun's last eight years heading the program.

Early in His Career
Braun began his career as an assistant coach at Park High School in Racine, Wis. Within two years, he accepted the head coaching job at Siena Heights. After an 8-21 debut season in 1977-78, his teams posted a 140-82 record over the next seven years, including four 20-win campaigns. His squads qualified for National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) postseason tournaments five times. During his time at Siena Heights, he not only coached, but also taught English at the school. In the summer of 1999, Braun was inducted into the first class of the Siena Heights Athletic Hall of Fame.

Braun accepted the position of associate head coach at Eastern Michigan prior to the start of the 1985-86 season, but midway through the year, on Jan. 15, 1986, he was elevated to interim head coach. Success came quickly and within two years he had the Eagles in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

In 1989, Braun served as head coach of the U.S. men's basketball team at the Maccabiah Games. He took an internationally-inexperienced squad to the championship round before bowing to the host Israeli team in the final.

During his career, Braun has coached 17 players who were drafted or went on to play in the NBA. Among the players on that list are Powe, who won an NBA World Championship with the Boston Celtics in 2008, Sean Marks of the New Orleans Hornets and the Orlando Magic's Ryan Anderson. Braun also coached Tony Gonzalez who has gone on to an All-Pro career in the NFL playing for the Kansas City Chiefs and now the Atlanta Falcons. While at Eastern Michigan, he coached both Grant Long and Earl Boykins.

Braun is on a short list of NCAA coaches who have had a large number of former assistants advance professionally to become Division I head coaches. Akron's Keith Dambrot, Texas A&M's Billy Kennedy, San Jose State's George Nessman and Cleveland State's Gary Waters were all, at one point during their careers, a member of Braun-led coaching staffs. Current Arizona assistant Joe Pasternack is the former head coach at New Orleans and a former member of a Braun-led coaching staff as is former Eastern Michigan coach Charles E. Ramsey.

A native of Chicago, Braun graduated from New Trier High School, where he starred in both basketball and baseball. He went on to play one year of basketball at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse before he transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned a teaching degree in English in June of 1975 with a minor in African-American Studies. Five years later, he earned his master's degree in guidance and counseling from Siena Heights.

Braun and wife Jessica have a son, Julius (3).

Braun Coaching Record

Siena Heights
Year	Overall	Pct.	Postseason
1977-78	8-21	.276	-
1978-79	24-6	.800	-
1979-80	21-11	.656	-
1980-81	22-11	.667	-
1981-82	19-13	.594	Michigan NAIA Coach of the Year
1982-83	21-12	.637	-
1983-84	15-14	.517	-
1984-85	18-15	.545	-
Totals	148-103	.590	8 Seasons

Eastern Michigan
Year	Overall	Pct.	MAC	Pct.	Postseason
1985-86	5-10	.333	4-10/T-9th	.286	Named Interim Coach, Jan. 15, 1986
1986-87	14-15	.483	8-8/4th	.500	-
1987-88	22-8	.733	14-2/1st	.875	MAC Champions, NCAA Tournament, MAC Coach of the Year
1988-89	17-12	.586	8-8/4th	.500	Coach of U.S. Maccabiah Games team
1989-90	19-13	.594	8-8/5th	.500	-
1990-91	26-7	.788	13-3/1st	.813	MAC Champions, NCAA Sweet 16, MAC Coach of the Year
1991-92	9-22	.290	4-12/8th	.250	-
1992-93	13-17	.433	8-10/6th	.444	-
1993-94	15-12	.556	10-8/T-5th	.556	-
1994-95	20-10	.667	12-6/3rd	.667	NIT
1995-96	25-6	.806	14-4/1st	.778	MAC Champions, NCAA Tournament, MAC Coach of the Year
Totals	185-132	.583	103-79	.566	11 Seasons

California
Year	Overall	Pct.	Pac-10	Pct.	Postseason
1996-97	23-9	.719	12-6/T-2nd	.667	NCAA Sweet 16, Pac-10 Coach of the Year
1997-98	12-15	.444	8-10/T-5th	.444	-
1998-99	22-11	.667	8-10/T-5th	.444	NIT Champions
1999-00	18-15	.545	7-11/7th	.389	NIT Quarterfinals
2000-01	20-11	.645	11-7/T-4th	.611	NCAA 1st Round
2001-02	23-9	.719	12-6/T-2nd	.667	NCAA 2nd Round
2002-03	22-9	.710	13-5/3rd	.722	NCAA 2nd Round
2003-04	13-15	.464	9-9/T-4th	.500	-
2004-05	13-16	.448	6-12/T-8th	.333	-
2005-06	20-11	.645	12-6/3rd	.667	NCAA 1st Round
2006-07	16-17	.485	6-12/8th	.333	-
2007-08	17-16	.515	6-12/9th	.333	NIT Second Round
Totals	219-154	.587	110-106	.509	12 Seasons

Rice
Year	Overall	Pct.	C-USA	Pct.	Postseason
2008-09	10-22	.313	4-12	.333	-
2009-10	8-23	.258	1-15	.063	-
2010-11	14-18	.437	5-11	.312	-
Totals	32-63	.337	10-38	.208	3 Seasons

Braun's Coaching Totals
Year	Overall	Pct.	Conference	Pct.	Postseason
34 Yrs.	584-452	.563	223-223	.500	7 NCAAs, 4 NITs