Should Cal Consider Amir Abdur-Rahim To Be Its Next Basketball Coach?

Brother of ex-Bears star Shareef Abdur-Rahim led Kennesaw State to the NCAAs.

Who is Amir Abdur-Rahim and why should Cal look at him as a candidate to fill its basketball coaching vacancy?

The younger brother of former Cal star Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Amir, 42, has sculpted his own place on the college basketball landscape.

In his fourth this season as head coach at Kennesaw State of the Atlantic Sun Conference, Abdur-Rahim led the Owls to their first NCAA tournament bid in the program’s 18th year at the Division I level.

And last Friday at Greensboro, N.C., his underdog 14th-seeded team nearly added to the litany of weekend’s upset outcomes before before third-seeded Xavier of the Big East escaped with a 72-67 victory.

Amir Abdur-Rahim got emotional after his team's NCAA exit / Twitter

Billy Kennedy, who helped recruit and coach Shareef Abdur-Rahim at Cal, sat with Shareef at the game Friday and was impressed by what he saw.

Asked if Amir Abdur-Rahim is someone Cal should consider, Kennedy said, “No question.”

During his time at Cal (1993-97), Kennedy coached under Todd Bozeman and Ben Braun and worked with players including Jason Kidd, Lamond Murray and Al Grigsby, along with Shareef Abdur-Rahim.

And Amir Abdur-Rahim could be a fit in Berkeley?

“He’s a great fit anywhere. He’s coached at a number of different places and had a lot of success,” said Kennedy, who coached him as Southeastern Louisiana and then had Abdur-Rahim on his staff at both Murray State and Texas A&M.

“He’s as qualified as many. He’s been with the right people and he’s prepared himself. He took a program that bottomed out and they got better every year.”

A program that bottomed out? Cal fans know about that.

The Bears have suffered six straight losing seasons and just completed the worst year in school history. Coach Mark Fox was fired the day after a 3-29 season ended.

Kennesaw State never had put together even a winning season when Abdur-Rahim arrived for the 2019-20 season, and his debut produced a 1-28 record, with 15 of those defeats by at least 20 points.

The Owls improved to five wins in Abdur-Rahim’s second season then went 13-18 a year ago. This team’s 15th victory way back on Jan. 21 set a school record for wins in a season, and Kennesaw went on share the ASUN regular-season title before capturing the conference tournament.

TNT and TBS analyst Kenny Smith said Abdur-Rahim “is built to build.”

Billy Kennedy during his days as head coach at Texas A&M / Photo by Andrew Nelles, Tennessean

Kennedy said Abdur-Rahim was self-built as both a player and a coach.

“He made himself a good player,” Kennedy said. “He’s worked at it — has always been someone who tried to get better. The whole family’s that way. He was always asking, `Coach, what can I do to get better?' And he would work on it.”

As a 6-foot-3 guard, Abdur-Rahim came to Southeastern Louisiana after one season playing junior college ball and totaled 1,282 points in three seasons, averaging 15.4 points for his career. He was an All-Southland Conference player as a senior.

After his playing days, Abdur-Rahim followed Kennedy to Murray State (2006-2011), where he contributed two Ohio Valley Conference championships. He had a two-year stint as an assistant at College of Charleston (2012-14), rejoined Kennedy at Texas A&M (2014-18) then worked one season at Georgia (2018-19) before landing the Kennesaw head-coaching assignment.

“Players love him,” Kennedy said. “He’s pretty tough on them but he cares about them and he’s done a great job of developing relationships with those kids. He can relate to them in a really good, powerful way. He’s become a really good coach.”

Kennedy said he’s unaware if Cal has reached out to Abdur-Rahim but knows other schools have done so.

“He’s made himself a good coach. Took over that (Kennesaw) program at the bottom and took them to the top,” Kennedy said. “He had a really good team. They had a great chance to beat Xavier the other day.”

Cover photo of Amir Abdur-Rahim by Kareem Elgazzar, The Enquirer

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo