Will Brown out as Albany men's college basketball coach after 20 years

ALBANY, N.Y. --  University of Albany men's basketball coach Will Brown is out after two decades.

Brown said in a news release issued Monday that he and the school had agreed "to mutually part ways." The 2020-21 season was the final year of his contract extension.

"Anyone who knows me knows this decision was extraordinarily difficult," Brown said in the release. "But I leave the University at Albany with an enormous sense of pride in the positive impact that my staff, my family and, most important, the student-athletes I had the honor of coaching, have had on UAlbany basketball and the greater Albany community."

The university, which plays in the America East Conference, said it will begin a national search for a successor immediately.

Brown, who was hired in December 2001, took a team that had recently become a Division I member (1999) and built it into a solid mid-major. His teams posted a record of 315-295 and earned five NCAA tournament berths.

The Great Danes' 2020-21 season ended Sunday with a loss to Hartford in the America East tournament quarterfinals. They finished 7-9, their third straight losing season.

Brown, who is 49, has on his résumé two America East regular-season titles; five America East championships; the program's first NCAA tournament win, 71-64 over Mount St. Mary's in the 2014 First Four; and America East Coach of the Year honors (2015).

Over a seven-year span (2011-18), the Great Danes posted a 153-83 record under Brown, but the program has struggled since the departures of Joe Cremo and David Nichols, who transferred after the 2017-18 season to play their final season elsewhere. Cremo ended up at Villanova and Nichols at Florida State.