Drew Diener will be entering his ninth season as the head coach at Rockhurst University in the fall of 2023.
Diener led Rockhurst to a 16-13 record in 2022-23 and directed the Hawks to a 17-12 record in 2018-19. In his first year in 2015-16, he led the Hawks to their first conference tournament appearance in six years.
Diener was named the 13th head coach in the history of men's basketball at Rockhurst on May 21, 2015.
He previously enjoyed a successful six-year stint at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee. Diener’s teams captured six Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference regular season titles, three CCAC tournament titles and one national championship. He posted an overall record of 168-43 (.796%), including 95-7 in conference play and 73-8 at home.
Stritch qualified for the national tournament in each of Diener’s six seasons. The Wolves won the NAIA Division II national championship in 2013, and advanced to the Elite Eight in 2012 and the Sweet 16 in 2014 and 2015.
In 2012-13, Diener led the Wolves to a 35-3 overall record, a 23-1 CCAC mark and the school’s first NAIA Division II Championship. He was named NABC/NAIA UPS National Coach of the Year and Rawlings NAIA Division II Coach of the Year.
Diener was named the CCAC Coach of the Year five times. Stritch received the James Naismith-Emil Liston Team Sportsmanship Award at the 2012 national tournament. Diener coached one National Tournament MVP, one National Tournament Hustle Award winner, three CCAC Player of the Year winners, one CCAC Freshman of the Year, four NAIA All-Americans and 20 All-CCAC players.
Diener came to Stritch in 2009 after serving as an assistant coach at the University of Virginia. Prior to that position, he was the Cavaliers’ director of men’s basketball operations for two seasons after leaving DePaul University, where he held the same post as a graduate assistant.
Before entering the college ranks, Diener was an assistant coach at Northridge Prep in Niles, Illinois, for a season. He also served as the assistant director of athletics and assistant golf coach at Northridge Prep.
Diener is a 2003 graduate of Saint Louis University and earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. He scored 537 points in four seasons for the Billikens and ranks fifth on SLU’s career three-point field goal percentage list with his 40-percent clip from beyond the arc. Saint Louis made one trip to the NCAA Division I Tournament and two visits to the NIT during his career. Diener was named the team’s Most Improved Player his junior season.
Diener played at Goodrich High School in Fond du Lac, where he was the 1998 Gatorade Wisconsin Player of the Year and an All-America selection by Street & Smith’s. He helped Goodrich, coached by his father, Dick, to four conference titles and a berth in the state quarterfinals as a senior. Diener’s brothers, Derek and Drake, were his teammates during his playing career in Fond du Lac. Diener graduated holding seven school records, including career points (1,505) and single-game scoring (45).
Diener and his wife, Kelly, have three sons: Everett, Roosevelt and Xavier.
