Mike Magpayo
Head Coach
Mike Magpayo was named head men’s basketball coach at Fordham University in March of 2025. Magpayo, the 2023 Big West Coach of the Year, served as the head coach at the University of California, Riverside for the past five years.
Over the past five years at UC Riverside, Magpayo set a new standard for Highlander men's basketball. He led the teams to two 20-win seasons, including a 21-13 slate this year, 14-6 in the Big West, as UC Riverside finished in a tie for third in the league standings and received a bid to the 2025 NIT.
Over his five years at UCR, Magpayo led the Highlanders to a record of 89-63 (.586). In the 20 years prior to his taking over, UCR had gone 205-386 (.347) as a Division I program.
Magpayo was named the first Big West Coach of the Year in UC Riverside program history in 2022-23 after leading UCR to a program-record 22 wins - including 10 in Big West play. For his efforts, Magpayo was named a finalist for the 2023 Hugh Durham Award, presented by CollegeInsider to the top mid-major head coach in Division I men’s college basketball.
A 2021-22 recipient of the Rising Coaches Trailblazer Award, an award presented to individuals who have blazed the way for diversity, equity and inclusion through the coaching and sports industry, Magpayo led the 2021-22 squad to 16-12 season with wins over previously-unbeaten Hawaii and Cal State Fullerton as well as a buzzer-beating victory at Arizona State during the season's opening weekend.
Following his first year at the helm, Magpayo led the program to new heights in 2020-21 with its highest Big West Tournament seed in program history (three) and the first Big West Tournament win in 10 years.
In his first season as head coach, Magpayo led UCR to a win over Washington which marked a number of firsts for Magpayo, including his first over a signature Power-5 opponent. It was his first win as a head coach, his first game coached on the sideline, and further, the first win for a team coached by a Division I head coach of Asian American descent. For his efforts, Magpayo was named the 2021 Joe B. Hall Award recipient, given annually to the top first-year head coach in Division I college basketball.
Magpayo arrived at UC Riverside in 2017, serving as an assistant coach with the program from 2017-20 and being promoted to associate head coach in 2019-20.
Prior to arriving in Riverside, Magpayo spent a year as the men's basketball director of operations at the University of San Francisco on the staff of his coaching mentor, Kyle Smith. The Dons finished the season with 22 wins, a fourth-place finish in the West Coast Conference and an appearance in the CBI Championship.
Magpayo also spent three years at Campbell University in the Big South Conference, where he served as the defensive coordinator and recruiting coordinator. In 2016-17, he helped put together one of the best seasons in school history, as the Camels advanced to the conference championship game and made their first postseason appearance since 1992.
A Hacienda Heights, Calif. native, Magpayo served as director of operations, assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Columbia University during the most successful four-year run in school history from 2010-14. He was a member of head coach Kyle Smith’s (currently the head coach at Stanford) staff, along with Todd Golden (currently head coach at Florida) and Kevin Hovde, who was just named head coach at Columbia.
A 2001 graduate of UC Santa Barbara where he earned a degree in business economics, Magpayo was a Southern California High School basketball coach from 2001-2010 before starting his college coaching career.