This time last year, Rob Fulford was preparing to coach high school basketball at Huntington Prep in West Virginia, the school that produced the likes of 2014 NBA Draft No. 1 pick Andrew Wiggins. Now, he’s getting ready to help lead a team in the Southeastern Conference.
“It was time,” Fulford said.
He spent the past five seasons as the head coach at Huntington Prep. Perennially one of the top high school programs in the country, Fulford went 138-17 in his time at the school.
“It’s similar (to coaching at Huntington),” Fulford said of his move to the college ranks. “We had a high school tag, but that was (essentially) Division I basketball so the challenges are the same.”
Fulford’s excited about the chance to be at the next level, but he wasn’t going to settle for just any college job. It had to be the right opportunity.
“Would I rather coach a low-major team that my high school team could beat to say that I coach college, or would I rather continue to coach (future) pros?” Fulford said of his reasoning for staying at the high school level. “So that was just the mindset that I had, that when the right situation and the right coach presented themselves, it was time.”
Fulford knew he ultimately wanted to end up in the college game, but it was a conversation with Missouri coach Kim Anderson that let Fulford decide Mizzou was the right fit and it was the right time to make the jump.
“After talking to him, I realized it was something I wanted to do,” Fulford said. “He and I have a lot of things in common. He got here in kind of a different way, going the Division II route for 12 years. I’m a guy who coached high school; obviously (Huntington Prep was) at an elite level, but it’s not college.”
A month into his coaching career, Fulford seems to be settling in quite nicely in his role as one of the assistants on Anderson’s staff.
“The resources are a lot better,” Fulford said. “I was scouting games off of MaxPreps stats in high school. Now we have all these fancy Internet systems that we can pull exact plays off. So that’ll be an adjustment learning how to utilize it.”
Fulford said he is also enjoying the opportunity to step back from the “bad cop” role and work with players more personally.
Having Fulford on staff could also help the Tigers with their future recruiting pursuits, as top Huntington prospects Thomas Bryant (class of 2015) and Miles Bridges (class of 2016) are currently on Mizzou’s radar.
> “I was scouting games off of MaxPreps stats in high school,” Fulford said. “Now we have all these fancy Internet systems that we can pull exact plays off. So that’ll be an adjustment learning how to utilize it.”
“Obviously you don’t want to overstep or feel like you’re putting pressure on any guys to come here for the wrong reasons,” Fulford said. “I want guys to come here for Mizzou, not because I’m here and they’re at my old stomping grounds.”
But with Fulford and freshman guard Montaque Gill-Caesar — a Huntingon product who reclassified into the class of 2014 and picked Mizzou after Fulford was hired — already in the fold, Missouri has quickly manufactured a new pipeline to one of the top basketball prep schools in the nation.
“Out of practice, I can go to him because he’s someone I trust,” Gill-Caesar said.
Fulford has worked with the wings since arriving at Mizzou and is already making an impression on some of his new players.
“Fulford’s bringing a lot of encouragement to this team,” said redshirt senior guard Keith Shamburger. “He’s talking to the young guys and even talking to me making sure we’re doing the right things. Once you have that on your coaching staff, it just makes you want to get better, because they want you to be better every day.”