Jeff Neubauer, who made an immediate impact in his first year as the head men’s basketball coach at Fordham by leading the Rams to one of their most successful seasons in almost a decade, enters his sixth season on Rose Hill in 2019-2020.
     
In his inaugural year at Fordham, Neubauer led the Rams to a 17-14 overall record, 8-10 in the Atlantic 10, and an appearance in the 2016 CollegeInsiders.com Tournament (CIT), Fordham’s first postseason appearance since 1992. The 17 overall wins and eight conference wins were the most since 2006-2007. The Rams went 14-5 in the Rose Hill Gym, the most home wins ever in school history.
 
The Rams also used another Neubauer specialty to reach their success in 2015-16, hitting a then school-record 243 long-range field goals.

In 2016-2017, the Rams were one of four Atlantic 10 teams to have a winning record in conference road games (5-4) with the five road conference wins tying the squad with the 2006-2007 team for most A-10 road wins in a season.

At home, Fordham continues its non-conference dominance in the Rose Hill Gym, going 32-11 in non-conference home games over the past five years.

In Neubauer’s first two years on Rose Hill, the Rams won 15 Atlantic 10 games, one more conference victory than the previous seven years combined, including Fordham’s first ever win over VCU in 2016-2017.

Statistically in 2016-2017, Fordham ranked among the NCAA top five in four categories: steals/game (third - 9.8), turnovers forced/game (third - 17.53), total steals (fourth - 315) and turnover margin (fifth - 4.5).

Fordham’s success in 2015-2016 was predicated on a strong defense, a Neubauer trademark. The Rams were second in the Atlantic 10 and tenth in the nation in steals/game (8.5) while also ranking 14th nationally in turnovers forced/game (15.74) and 24th with 263 total steals, the fourth-best single season total in school history.

In 2018-2019, the Rams set a school record with 276 made three-pointers, including a school-record 16 in a game, and ranked second in the Atlantic 10, and 50th in the NCAA, in turnover margin (+2.3).

The Rams again displayed a solid defense in 2019-2020, leading the Atlantic 10 and ranking tenth in the NCAA in scoring defense, allowing just 61.7 ppg, the lowest total for a Fordham team in the shot clock era.

In 13 years as a head coach, Neubauer has a 239-209 career record, going 188-134 at Eastern Kentucky. He has guided six of his twelve teams to postseason play.

Prior to joining the Rams, Neubauer served as the head coach at Eastern Kentucky for ten years, leading the Colonels to five 20-win seasons, including in each of his last three years, and five trips to national postseason tournaments, including a berth in the 2014 NCAA Championships where the Colonels nearly upset second-seeded Kansas in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Neubauer’s 188 career wins at Eastern Kentucky is second only to Paul S. McBrayer’s 214 at the school and his overall mark as the Colonels’ leader is 188-134.

Neubauer’s last five seasons were like none other at Eastern Kentucky. The Colonels’ 101 victories over that stretch are the most during any five-year period in school history. EKU won a school-record 25 games in 2012-13 and accumulated 70 victories over the past three seasons.
 
Despite being picked to finish third in the Ohio Valley Conference East Division in 2014-2015, Neubauer guided the Colonels to a first-place finish, earning the No. 2 seed in the OVC tournament. The Colonels finished the year 21-12, falling in the quarterfinals of the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT).

In 2013-2014, Neubauer led the Colonels to the Ohio Valley Conference title as Eastern Kentucky won three games in three days at the tournament. The Colonels finished the season with a 24-10 mark and were second in the nation in turnover margin, fifth in three-point field goals per game and sixth in steals.
 
Following the 2013-2014 season, Neubauer was named one of 15 finalists for the 2014 Hugh Durham Award, presented annually to the nation’s top mid-major coach. He was also selected as the 2013 National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) District 19 Coach of the Year.

Neubauer’s 2012-13 EKU squad finished 25-10, setting the school record for wins in a season, and earned a spot in the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT).  Eastern Kentucky finished with three more wins than the previous program-best of 22, including the program’s first victory in a national postseason tournament game in 68 years.
      The Colonels were just as successful in the classroom under Neubauer.  In 2014, the program earned a coveted NCAA Division I Academic Progress Rate (APR) Public Recognition Award.  This specific award is given each year to teams that posted multiyear APRs in the top-10 percent of all squads in each sport.  The APR provides a real-time look at a team’s academic success each semester by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete on scholarship.  Eastern Kentucky was one of only 40 men’s basketball teams from across the nation, and one of only two in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, to earn the Public Recognition Award.

Eastern Kentucky had a perfect 1,000 Academic Progress Rate (APR) for the 2012-13 academic year and the team’s multi-year APR score of 990 was among the top 10 highest scores for men’s basketball teams in the nation. EKU’s the national APR average (957) for men’s basketball teams was 33 points better than the national average.
 
In just Neubauer’s second season at the helm, the Colonels earned a berth in 2007 NCAA Tournament, winning the OVC title and finishing 21-12.  EKU won 11 of its final 13 games that season to earn the NCAA appearance.

Neubauer has coached eleven all-conference players, two OVC Defensive Players of the Year, an OVC Co-Freshman of the Year, two OVC Tournament MVPs and the program’s top two all-time leading scorers in his nine years at Eastern Kentucky.

Before arriving at Eastern Kentucky, Neubauer served three seasons as the top assistant at West Virginia under head coach John Beilein where he helped fuel the Mountaineers’ rapid rise to national prominence.

The rebuilding process at West Virginia culminated in the Mountaineers’ dramatic run through the 2005 NCAA Tournament.  WVU earned triumphs over five top-20 programs in the regular season before reaching the Big East Tournament’s championship game and the NCAA Championship Elite Eight. West Virginia finished 2004-05 ranked 12th in the country.

Neubauer served under Beilein at the University of Richmond for five years before heading to West Virginia. The Spiders won 100 games during that time and earned a berth in the 1998 NCAA Championship.

Prior to Richmond, Neubauer served three seasons as a graduate assistant coach at The Citadel, where he also earned an MBA degree.
 
Neubauer, a native of Slidell, La., played point guard at La Salle University for head coach William “Speedy” Morris.  The Explorers went 30-2 and earned an NCAA tournament berth in Neubauer’s freshman season.  La Salle accumulated two more postseason berths and an overall record of 83-36 during his four years on the squad. Neubauer served as a team captain as a senior and earned honorable mention GTE All-Academic® accolades as a cum laude graduate in finance in 1993.
    
Neubauer and his wife, Martina, were married in June of 2016. They reside in Bronxville, N.Y.