Basketball Australia is announcing that Michael Czepil has been appointed as Head Coach of the Centre of Excellence (CoE).
Czepil will return to Australia to head up the CoE men’s program after serving as Sacramento State’s head coach in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) in 2025.
The development specialist is excited to return and work with Australia’s top basketball talent.
“The Centre of Excellence is universally regarded as one of the finest development models in all of junior basketball. So, to be thought of as somebody who can help nurture the next wave of prospects through the program is incredibly humbling,” said Czepil.
“It's the opportunity to impact not only the athletes in the daily training environment, but also the Australian basketball pathway as a whole that I am thrilled to have.”
The Victorian from Hoppers Crossing has traversed the Australian basketball pathway and has experience across a plethora of touchpoints.
He progressed as an athlete first before shifting to play college hoops for Nicholls State University in Louisiana.
Czepil has always maintained a lens on the increasingly successful Australian pathway and he understands the role of the Centre of Excellence as a pipeline for future Boomers and Opals.
“The Australian basketball pathway is very unique in comparison to the rest of the world. The magnitude of the CoE is that every young, talented athlete in the country grows up dreaming to be a part of the environment,” said Czepil.
“Over the last ten years I've seen a lot of Australia’s junior athletes at various points of the pathway, both at home and abroad. So I do have a pretty good idea of both the behaviours and abilities required for them to one day push for senior national team selection,” he added.
“Having held leadership positions in the college system for a number of seasons now, I do understand the importance of setting and maintaining a high-performance environment and how that influences the development of both athletes and coaches.”
There’s a connecting figure on the journey for Czepil in current Boomers assistant coach, David Patrick.
In 2018, after a successful stint back home as Head Coach for the Werribee Devils and Basketball Victoria, Czepil made the bold commitment to return to the USA to join Patrick at UC Riverside.
Two years after Patrick departed UC Riverside to coach at Arkansas, he got the call from Sacramento State to join Patrick as an assistant. The stint at Sacramento was formative and provided a gilded edge of development.
Another figure that’s no stranger to David Patrick is Adam Caporn, with the pair flanking Brian Goorjian during the most successful period in Boomers history.
Caporn who spoke highly of the expertise that Czepil will bring to the position.
“Michael Czepil is an outstanding coach and person whose experience spans multiple facets of high-performance basketball,” said Caporn.
“His breadth of expertise, combined with strong technical acumen, innovative thinking, and a commitment to continuous improvement, make him the ideal person to build on the CoE’s proud legacy and continue its lasting impact on Australian basketball.”
For Peter Lonergan, General Manager of Pathways the journey of Michael Czepil demonstrated a holistic understanding of the system and what it will take to provide continuation of the success at the CoE.
“Michael is a product of the established BA pathway, having developed as a player through the Basketball Victoria performance program and then coaching in that same program,” said Lonergan.
“His experience as both a collegiate assistant and head coach brings a skill set in developing young players and we are excited to have him lead the COE Men’s program.
Michael Czepil will report for duty in Canberra from 8 July. If the CoE men’s record holds up he will start his time in the job preparing for an NBL1 East finals campaign, which will commence from 24 July.
