Tim Buckley - Men's Basketball Coach

Tim Buckley

Title:
Assistant Coach

Tim Buckley joined the Iowa State Men's Basketball coaching staff in April 2026. Buckley is reunited with Iowa State Head Coach T.J. Otzelberger, as Buckley was on Otzelberger's staff at UNLV.

Buckley, a coaching veteran with over 30 years of experience, is widely known for his player development and recruiting some of the best talent in the country. Over the course of Buckley’s career, as both a head coach and an assistant coach, he has helped his teams to eight NCAA Tournament appearances, three NIT appearances and a trip to the NBA Playoffs. Buckley has also been a part of five conference championship winning teams.

He has worked with 12 NBA Draft Picks, nine of which were drafted in the first round. Among those nine first round picks, six of them were lottery picks. Some of the top talent Buckley has recruited and developed include Dwyane Wade (5^th Pick in 2003 Draft), Victor Oladipo (2^nd Pick in 2013 Draft), Cody Zeller (4^th Pick in 2013 Draft and Noah Vonleh (9^th Pick in 2014 Draft).

Most recently, Buckley spent the past two seasons at fellow Big 12 school Cincinnati. Prior to that, Buckley was at South Carolina for two seasons, where he helped the Gamecocks to the 2024 NCAA Tournament and the most wins in the regular season in program history. South Carolina allowed just 66.4 points per game during the regular season in 2023-24, which led the SEC, and was one of just four teams in the SEC to rank in the Top 50 of adjusted efficiency on offense and defense via KenPom. Buckley was on Otzelberger’s staff for both seasons at UNLV, while remaining in Las Vegas for one year on Kevin Kruger’s staff in 2021-22. In 2020, Buckley was named one of the top assistant coaches in the Mountain West by Stadium.

Prior to joining Otzelberger at UNLV, Buckley was a scout for the Minnesota Timberwolves from 2017-19. He was an assistant coach at Indiana from 2008-17, serving as the associate head coach from 2012-17. During that time, the Hoosiers advanced to three Sweet 16’s and won a pair of outright Big 10 titles in a four-year span.

Buckley has two different stints as a head coach in his career. He was the head coach at NCAA Division III Rockford (Ill.) from 1989-93 and was the head coach at Ball State from 2000-06. His 2001-02 Ball State squad was one of the best in school history, advancing to the NIT Elite Eight while winning the MAC West Division Championship. During the regular season, they finished runner-up in the EA Sports Maui Invitational, picking up wins over No. 7 Kansas and No. 5 UCLA before falling to No. 1 Duke in the championship game. Buckley has also spent time as an assistant coach at Indiana, Marquette, Iowa, Ball State, Wisconsin and Rockford.

Buckley played collegiately at Waubonsee Community College (Ill.) and Bemidji State (Minn.). He was inducted into the Bemidji State Hall of Fame in February 2012, while being inducted into the WCC Hall of Fame later that year. Buckley and his wife, Shannon, have a daughter, Meredith.