Pacific Division championships: 2002-03, ‘03-04, ‘05-06, ‘06-07, ‘07-08, ‘08-09, '09-10, '12-13
Canada West championships: 2002-03, ‘06-07, ‘07-08, '10-11, '12-13
U SPORTS medalists: 2008-09 (silver), '09-10 (silver), '10-11 (bronze)
Canada West Coach of the Year: 2001-02, ‘05-06, ‘08-09, '09-10, '10-11, '16-17
U SPORTS Coach of the Year: 2005-06, '09-10
Entering 2019-20 season
Overall record at UBC: 466-176 (.726)
Conference record at UBC: 304-91 (.770)
UBC’s Kevin Hanson is one of most decorated head coaches in the Canada West, and all of U SPORTS. He enters his 20th season at UBC with 304 conference victories, and is the wins leader amongst current Canada West coaches. Hanson trails just Don Horwood (313) on the league’s all-time list. Hanson also holds the best regular season winning percentage in Canada West for active coaches at .770.
In the 2018-19, the Thunderbirds won 17 of 20 regular season games for the second year in a row. UBC went the distance in a pair of best-of-three series to advance to the Canada West final, where the team fell to Calgary. At the U SPORTS Final 8, the T-Birds battled to a fifth-place finish with a record of 2-1.
The 2017-18 campaign saw fifth-year forward Conor Morgan earn Canada West Player of the Year recognition for the second time in a row.
Hanson was an assistant coach with the Canadian team that, with UBC stars Morgan and Grant Shephard, won silver at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.
It was Canada’s first basketball medal at the Commonwealth Games, and the squad was named Team of the Year (Summer Sport Performance) at the 41st Canada Sport Awards in Ottawa in September.
At the end of the 2016-17 campaign, Hanson was recognized as the Canada West’s Coach of the Year. It was the sixth time he achieved this feat, tied for the most in league history. Hanson previously merited the honour in 2002, 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2011. In 2006 and 2010, he was named the U SPORTS Coach of the Year.
The 2016-17 edition of Hanson’s T-Birds went 19-1 in league play, improving their regular season record for the third-consecutive season. In addition to the coaching honour, UBC team members also earned three other major conference awards: Player of the Year (Morgan), Defensive Player of the Year (Jordan Jensen-Whyte), and the Ken Shields Award nomination for excellence in basketball, academics and community involvement (Phil Jalalpoor).
In 2015-16, Hanson recorded his 250th conference victory and led his Thunderbirds to a fifth-place showing at the U SPORTS Final 8 national tournament, which was played at UBC for the first time since 1972.
Since arriving at UBC in 2000, Hanson has turned the men’s basketball program into a national power, guiding the T-Birds to consecutive appearances (2009 and 2010) in the U SPORTS championship game.
Hanson was also well recognized before coming to UBC and is a four-time BCCAA Coach of the Year (‘92,’ 94, ’99, ’00), was twice presented with the CCAA Coaching Excellence Award (‘94 and ‘99), and was also named Basketball B.C. Coach of the Year in 1992 and 1994.
The Regina native came to UBC in 2000 after nine years behind the bench at Langara College in Vancouver. Hanson guided the Falcons to five BCCAA provincial championships and two CCAA national championships in 1997-98 and 1998-99. The Falcons, 261-74 under his direction, represented B.C. at the nationals seven of his nine years as head coach.
The two-time UBC graduate has also been involved with Basketball Canada for nearly two decades, leading Canada’s World University Games team to a bronze-medal finish at the 2003 Summer Universiade in Korea. In the same position in 2005, Hanson led Canada to fifth place in Turkey. He was the head coach of the 2011 Canadian roster that won the silver medal in Shenzhen, China. In 2017, Hanson served as Team Canada head coach at a Summer Universiade for the fourth time.
Hanson was one of three final candidates for the senior men’s national team head coaching position in 2004.
In the summer of 2006, he was a guest coach at the senior men’s national team camp and was head coach of the B.C. under-19 boys that won a gold medal at the 1997 Canada Summer Games.
His post-secondary coaching experience began with the assistant position at Vancouver Community College in 1987-88, at Simon Fraser University in 1988-89 and at UBC in 1990-91, when the Thunderbirds were Canada West champions and consolation champions at the U SPORTS tournament.
As a player, Hanson was named Langara’s outstanding male athlete and a CCAA all- Canadian in 1984. After joining the T-Birds the following season, he was twice named the team’s most inspirational player (‘86,’ 87) and was a U SPORTS national tournament all-star in 1987, the year the ‘Birds won silver. In his final game at War Memorial Gym, Hanson captained the ‘Birds to one of the biggest victories in the team’s history when UBC swept seven-time defending national champion Victoria in the best-of-three Canada West final.
In 2009, Hanson was honoured with a Distinguished Alumni Award by Langara College for his outstanding achievements as both a player and coach for the Falcons. He was also part of Seaquam Secondary’s inaugural 2009 Wall of Fame class for achievements in basketball. In 2018, Langara College established a scholarship in Hanson’s name to support Falcons student-athletes.
Hanson graduated from UBC’s Faculty of Human Kinetics in 1988 and earned his Master’s Degree in Human Kinetics from UBC in 1994.
