Greg Heiar (pronounced “higher”) is in his fourth season as an assistant coach under head coach Gregg Marshall, following two years as an assistant at Southern Miss and five successful seasons as head coach at Chipola (Fla.) Junior College.
Heiar’s first three years on the WSU campus have been some of the fruitful years in the school’s 108-year basketball history, with two Missouri Valley Conference regular season titles and three-consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament, including a run to the 2013 Final Four.
The Shockers enter the 2014-15 season with a 92-16 record since Heiar’s arrival in the summer of 2011, and their .852 winning percentage over that three-year span is tops in Division I college basketball.
In 2013-14, Wichita State became the first team in NCAA Division I history to open a season 35-0. The Shockers swept through the MVC regular season with a perfect 18-0 mark, becoming the first Valley team to run the table in nearly three decades. Shortly after, WSU snapped a long MVC Tournament drought with its first title since 1987.
The Shockers were ranked in the Top 25 all season, also a first for WSU, and reached the No. 2 spot in both the AP and Coaches Polls for the first time since the 1981-82 season.
Heiar was also instrumental during the 2012-13 season when a Final Four appearance by the Shockers topped a six-year reconstruction at Wichita State under Head Coach Gregg Marshall. En route, WSU defeated Pittsburgh, Gonzaga, La Salle, and Ohio State before losing to eventual National Champion Louisville in the National Semifinal game in Atlanta. The voters in the USA Today Coaches poll rewarded the Shockers with a final No. 4 ranking, their highest final ranking ever.
The 2011-12 Shockers posted a 16-2 mark in MVC play to win the school’s first conference title since 2006 and booked a trip to the NCAA Tournament as a No. 5 seed.
Heiar was officially announced as WSU’s newest assistant on May 3, 2011.
"Greg Heiar has been a winner everywhere he’s been as a player, head coach, and now as an assistant coach," head coach, Gregg Marshall said. "He builds relationships which are beneficial in recruiting and his record as a head coach is exemplary. We feel like Greg and his family are the complete package."
Prior to his stint at Southern Miss, he spent six years at Chipola (Fla.) Junior College, including his last five at the school as the head coach. While at Chipola, Heiar coached the Indians to a 164-15 record. He coached 40 all-conference players and sent 39 players to Division I schools. He was named the Panhandle Conference Coach of the Year five times, and earned NJCAA Region VIII Coach of the Year four times.
In his last season at Chipola, Heiar coached the team to a 35-2 record and its fifth-consecutive Panhandle Conference Championship. The Indians then earned a third-place finish in the NJCAA National Tournament, their fourth appearance in a five-year span in the National Tournament.
As a player, Heiar earned second-team all-region honors at Kirkwood Community College, after leading his team to the National Tournament for the first time in school history. That year, he helped to guide his team to a 25-10 record and a conference championship.
Success followed Heiar to Franciscan University where he was a two-year team captain and team MVP. In addition to numerous all-tournament honors, Heiar was a first team all-conference choice and led his to the first conference title in school history.
Heiar played basketball for former WSU assistant coach Chris Jans at Kirkwood (Iowa) Community College and also coached under Jans at Chipola (Fla.) Community College. The two reunited with Heiar’s addition to the WSU staff for three more years, before Jans moved on in the summer of 2014 to become head coach at Bowling Green.
Heiar and his wife, Jessica, have a daughter, Alexis.
