Mike Lepore (Le-poor) joined the San José State men’s basketball team as an assistant coach in April of 2014. Since his arrival the Spartans have seen an immense improvement both on the court and in the classroom.
Lepore was a four-year letterwinning point guard at Wake Forest (2005-09) and now primarily focuses on instructing SJSU’s guards.
Along with the rest of the staff Lepore’s guidance and recruiting has helped San José State to a 12.0-game turnaround over a two-year period, one of the best in college basketball from 2015-16 through 2016-17.
San José State’s 14 wins in 2016-17 were the most since 2010-11, and seven Mountain West victories were the most conference wins since the 1995-96 season. Another first since the ’95-96 was a four-game conference win streak which included wins over UNLV (2), New Mexico and San Diego State.
Alongside his coaching and recruiting efforts, Lepore has been instrumental in facilitating the team’s academic success. The 2016-17 season marked the program’s third time in four years with a single-year APR score of 1,000. Lepore was given the honor of Academic Assistant Coach of the Year in 2015-16 at the annual San José State University SAMMY’s Awards.
Lepore came to San José State after two seasons as the Saint Louis University director of basketball operations for head coach Jim Crews. His duties included planning and executing team travel, organizing practice and workout schedules, coordinating recruiting visits and event schedules and building the team's non-conference schedule.
While Lepore was on staff the Billikens had their best two-year stretch of men's basketball success posting a cumulative record of 55-14. The team was a #4 and a #5-seed in the 2013 and 2014 NCAA Tournaments respectively, advancing to the third round of each of those national championships.
Lepore's professional career began at his alma mater Wake Forest working for head coaches Dino Gaudio and Jeff Bzedlik. It was the 2010 season as the assistant coordinator of operations that he would team up with Coach Wojcik for the first time.
That year the Demon Deacons won 20 games and captured their first NCAA Tournament victory in five years, defeating a Texas team that was ranked #1-nationally twice during the regular season.
For the 2011 and 2012 seasons, Lepore was the team's video coordinator and director of scouting/recruiting. He managed the team's recruiting database, maintained recruiting depth charts, planned and oversaw recruiting visits, coordinated AAU event schedules for the coaching staff and updated team efficiency statistics after each game.
As a gritty, determined guard at Wake Forest, Lepore was a part of four NCAA Tournament teams, one NIT squad, two Atlantic-10 Conference regular-season championships, and one Atlantic-10 Conference Tournament championship. He played two seasons each for Coach Wojcik's high school coaches, the late Skip Prosser and Gaudio.
With Lepore, the 2009 Demon Deacons set a school record with 16 consecutive wins to begin the season and were ranked #1 nationally in mid-January as the only undefeated team in the country. The year included huge wins over #1-ranked Duke and #3-ranked North Carolina. It was just the fifth time in school history and the first in 17 seasons Wake Forest knocked off the top team in the country.
His college teammates included future NBA players Jeff Teague (Indiana Pacers), Al-Farouq Aminu (Portland Trail Blazers), Ishmael Smith (Detroit Pistons) and James Johnson (Miami Heat).
The Somerville, N.J., native majored in finance and received his bachelor's degree in May of 2009.
Mike and his wife Kaitlin live in San Jose.