Mike Davis hired as MVSU men's basketball coach, per source

Mississippi Valley State will hire former Memphis basketball assistant coach Mike Davis as its new coach, a source told The Commercial Appeal on April 21.

The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because no official announcement has been made.

Davis — perhaps best known as the successor at Indiana to legendary coach Bobby Knight, leading the Hoosiers to the national championship game in 2002 — will take over for George Ivory III, who was dismissed on March 31 after four seasons with the Delta Devils. MVSU finished 3-30 in 2025-26 and Ivory won 12 games as coach.

Davis will be the 13th head coach in program history.

Davis spent the past two seasons as an assistant coach at Memphis under Penny Hardaway. In March, following a 13-19 season, Davis was part of a wave of coaching staff firings made by Hardaway, which included assistants Jermaine Johnson and Roy Rogers, strength and conditioning coach Todd Forcier, and director of scouting Josh Townsend. Johnson has since landed at Louisiana-Monroe as an assistant coach.

Hardaway is in the process of rebuilding his coaching staff. He recently hired associate head coach Tony Madlock, as well as assistants Sean Mock, Trevor DeLoach and Steve Wright.

Davis, who has also been a coach at Texas Southern and UAB, holds a 412-360 career record with nine NCAA Tournament appearances (four at Indiana, one at UAB and four at Texas Southern).

MVSU has not won more than nine games in a season since 2011-12, when the Delta Devils went 21-13 and reached the NCAA Tournament.

Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com, follow him @munzly on X.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Mike Davis hired as MVSU men's basketball coach, per source