Bill Armstrong - Men's Basketball Coach

Bill Armstrong

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
Bill_Armstrong@Baylor.edu
Phone:
3096

Bill Armstrong was hired as an Assistant Coach under Scott Drew on May 3, 2024, spending one season with the Bears before being hired as the head coach at McNesse in March of 2025.

In 2024-25, he assisted the Bears to a school-record sixth-consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance, making them one of only eight teams to qualify for nine of the last 10 tournaments. Armstrong helped BU up its streak 13-straight postseason appearances, the fifth-longest active streak in the nation. Ranked as high as No. 8, Baylor extended its streak of being ranked in the top 10 for six straight years, joining Duke, Gonzaga, Kentucky, and Kansas. Additionally, VJ Edgecombe earned both the Big 12 preseason and postseason Freshman of the Year honors, marking the third straight year a Baylor player has achieved this, a first in Big 12 history.

Prior to his arrival in Waco, Armstrong spent the last two seasons as the head coach at Link Academy in Branson, Mo., where he coached several notable prospects including BU’s Ja’Kobe Walter. In his time leading the Lions, the program was perennially in the top-10 and made it to the Chipotle High School Basketball Nationals, formerly the GEICO Nationals, in 2022-23 and 2023-24.

Led by Armstong and spurred by Walter, the 2022-23 Lions captured the national championship and finished the season as the No. 1 ranked team in the country. This past season Link made it to the semi-finals of the eight-team national finals, before being upended by Paul VI High School in the semifinals.

Prior to his tenure at Link, Armstrong served as the associate head coach at LSU from 2020-22 after spending three years in Baton Rouge as an assistant coach from 2017-20. During his time with the Bayou Bengals, LSU made four postseason appearances, including three NCAA tournaments, highlighted by a run to the Sweet 16 in 2019. The Tigers also had back-to-back first round picks in 2021 and 2022 as Cam Thomas and Tari Eason were taken with the 27th and 17th picks, respectively. Over his five seasons in South Louisiana, the Tigers amassed 108 wins and a 2019 SEC regular-season title.

Prior to his time at LSU, Armstrong spent 11 years on staff at Ole Miss, the first five as the director of operations and the final six as an assistant coach. In that time, the Rebels won 20 games nine times, earned eight postseason berths and won a pair of SEC West titles. He helped tutor All-SEC players like Stefan Moody, Marshall Henderson and Sebastian Saiz. During 2012-13, Armstrong aided in the Rebels tying a school record with 27 wins, and snapped an 11-year NCAA Tournament drought, while Henderson earned SEC Player of the Year Honors.

Before his arrival in Oxford, Armstrong spent three years as an assistant coach at Birmingham Southern. His first year in Birmingham was Southern’s first full season of NCAA eligibility and Armstrong helped the team to a 20-7 record, earning a share of the Big South regular-season championship.

He also spent time as an assistant coach at the junior college level at Chipola Junior College in Marianna, Fla., where he helped lead the Indians to a 23-9 record and a second-place finish in the Panhandle Conference in 2002-03.

A 2001 graduate of UAB, he served as a graduate assistant for the Blazers in 2001-02 under Murray Bartow. In a four-year playing career at UAB, Armstrong played for Andy Kennedy, who an assistant coach with the Blazers and later hired Armstrong at Ole Miss. Selected as a team captain his senior year, he twice led UAB to the postseason in the 1998 NIT and the 1999 NCAA Tournament.