GCU Men's Basketball Camps

Head Coach Bryce Drew

Bryce Drew is in his fifth season as Grand Canyon's men's basketball head coach in 2024-25 after being named the 14th head coach in program history prior to the 2020-21 campaign.

Drew has made the Lopes into an NCAA tournament mainstay with three trips in his first four seasons leading the program. He took things to the next level in 2023-24 by leading GCU to its first March Madness win with the 12th-seeded Lopes defeating fifth-seeded Saint Mary's.

Drew has taken all three programs he's been the head coach of to the NCAA Tournament including Valparaiso, Vanderbilt and GCU, and he got his first career tournament win while leading the Lopes.

GCU's best D-I season came on Drew's watch in 2023-24. The Lopes won their first outright WAC regular-season championship, won the WAC Tournament, won an NCAA tournament game and logged a 30-win season. The Lopes brought in DePaul transfer Tyon Grant-Foster and he averaged a team-leading 20.1 points and was the first GCU player to win WAC Player of the Year. Drew was one of 15 late-season finalists for the Naismith Men's Coach of the Year award and was named the National Association of Basketball Coaches' District 6 Coach of the Year.

Drew wasted no time getting acclimated to GCU, leading the Lopes to their first appearance in the D-I NCAA tournament in his inaugural season. GCU won its first WAC regular-season title and its first WAC tournament title, advancing to March Madness for a date with No. 2 seeded Iowa. The Lopes went 17-7 overall and 9-3 in conference play amid a season plagued by the coronavirus pandemic. In a span of 12 months, Drew recruited new players (including WAC Newcomer of the Year Asbjørn Midtgaard), established a new culture and program identity and won a pair of WAC titles, all while facing various levels of practice restrictions and testing requirements due to COVID-19. On the regular season's final day, GCU defeated Utah Valley to win its first regular-season title and claim the top seed in the conference's tournament. GCU had a dominant run in the 2021 WAC tournament, defeating Seattle U and New Mexico State by a combined 52 points.

The Lopes were dancing again two years later. As the conference's No. 5 seed in the 2023 WAC Tournament, GCU made a tear through the bracket by winning four games in four days to return to March Madness. After tight wins over UT Arlington, Seattle U and Sam Houston, the Lopes defeated Southern Utah by 18 in the championship game to become the conference's lowest-seeded team to win the tournament since 2001. As a No. 14 seed, GCU was paired up against Gonzaga in Denver. The Lopes held leads as large as seven points and continued to lead under the two minute mark of the first half but fell by 12 to the Bulldogs.

GCU's best season in the NET rankings came in Drew's second season and, quizzically, his only year not to reach the NCAA Tournament. Drew and his staff were charged with replacing GCU's two leading scorers heading into 2022-23. Behind the development of Jovan Blacksher Jr. and the addition of Holland Woods II, the Lopes posted a 92 NET with a 23-8 mark. GCU's best win by metrics in its D-I program history came on Dec. 18 in the Colangelo Classic as GCU topped previously undefeated San Francisco.

Prior to GCU, Drew has had successful head coaching stops at his alma mater, Valparaiso, and at Vanderbilt, where he qualified for his third NCAA tournament visit as a head coach in 2017. Drew came to GCU with a career coaching record of 164-108 (.603), including a program-record season of 30 wins in his final year at Valparaiso.

Drew averaged 25 wins per season at Valparaiso and won the Horizon League regular-season championship four times during his five-year tenure (2011-16). He led the Crusaders to their first NCAA tournament berth in nine years with 2013 and 2015 visits.

Drew moved to Vanderbilt to take on the SEC challenge in 2016 and coached his first Commodores team to five wins against top-25 teams and an NCAA Tournament berth. He came to the Phoenix area to land his first Vanderbilt recruit, Saben Lee, who starred in the 2019-20 season with 18.6 points and 4.2 assists per game.

In 2017, Drew assembled the greatest recruiting class in Vanderbilt history when he signed two five-star prospects. One of those players, Darius Garland, played only five games that season but was still drafted fifth overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2019 NBA Draft.

In 2019-20, Drew worked as an ESPN studio and game analyst, visited college and pro coaches and spent time with his wife, Tara, and 5-year-old son, Bryson. Drew's Christian faith has been embedded in his life, as a Fellowship of Christian Athletes member, Athletes in Action player and a coach at faith-based universities.

Drew played six NBA seasons after being drafted 16th overall by the Houston Rockets in 1998, where he started 41 games in 2000-01. In 1999, the NBA awarded him with the Henry P. Iba Citizen Athlete Award for sportsmanship.

The 6-foot-3 point guard, who also played for the Chicago Bulls and New Orleans Hornets, was known for his perimeter shot (37% 3-point shooting) but he is most famous for "The Shot" he made in the 1998 NCAA tournament to lead the No. 13 seeded Valparaiso Crusaders over No. 4 seeded Ole Miss.

Valparaiso kept the Cinderella slipper for another round, beating Florida State in overtime to become the program's first Sweet 16 team. Drew finished with two Mid-Continent Conference Player of the Year awards and a school-record 2,142 points. He averaged 17.7 points and 5.2 assists for his career, which ended with All-America third-team honors. His No. 24 was retired at the northwest Indiana campus.

Drew comes from a basketball family and played for his dad Homer at Valparaiso. His brother Scott began his coaching career at Valparaiso in 2002 and has since turned the Baylor basketball program around with a 444-244 record in 21 seasons and a 2021 national championship. Drew's sister Dana was a Mid-American Conference Player of the Year at Toledo.

Drew and his wife, Tara, have one child: Bryson.