Former Texan Cantrell returns as men’s basketball assistant coach

STEPHENVILLE – The Tarleton men’s basketball team has added former player and coach Nic Cantrell to its staff as an assistant coach.

Cantrell has spent eight years with the Texans – two as a player and five as a coach. Cantrell was a student assistant coach from 2008-10, a graduate assistant from 2010-12 and promoted to assistant coach for the 2012-13 season. In his five seasons on the bench, Cantrell helped the Texans to a 113-40 record and four 20-win seasons. The Texans appeared in four NCAA regional tournaments, won a Lone Star Conference Championship and an LSC Tournament Championship with Cantrell on staff.

“I’m extremely excited to bring Nic Cantrell on board to our staff,” said head coach Chris Reisman. “He’s extremely loyal and has a great feel of what it takes to be successful in the Lone Star Conference. He brings an incredible work ethic and energy to our program. He’s recruited high-level players and understands our system and will be great transitioning our student-athletes. We are blessed to add Nic, his wife Kimberly, and their two kids Aubrey and Jaxon to Texan Nation.”

Cantrell is a member of the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches (TABC) as well as the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC).

Prior to his Tarleton coaching career, Cantrell played for the Texans from 2005-08, going 70-24 in his three seasons. In his first season in 2005-06, Cantrell and the Texans went 27-7 and advanced to the NCAA Elite Eight and finished the season ranked No. 13 by the NABC. In the 2007-08 season, Cantrell and the Texans finished 25-7 overall and earned the No. 1 seed in the South Central Regional, which the Texans hosted in Stephenville that season. Tarleton finished the season as a regional championship finalist and notched a No. 15 season-ending ranking by the NABC.

As a player at North Mesquite High School, Cantrell was a TABC preseason all-state selection and first-team all-district as a junior and senior.

He graduated from North Mesquite High School in 2005 and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degree in Kinesiology from Tarleton.

He married a former Tarleton TexAnn basketball player, Kimberly Smith-Cantrell. They have a daughter, Aubrey, and a son, Jaxon.