College basketball veteran Chris Casey was named the interim head coach of Fairfield University Men’s Basketball prior to the 2023-24 season and was named the 14th head coach in program history on March 12, 2024.
Before assuming the head coaching role, Casey most recently served as an assistant with the Stags for the last four campaigns and previously led the programs at Niagara, LIU Post and Rutgers-Newark.
Casey has coached 39 consecutive college basketball seasons (entering 2025-26) as a head coach, assistant coach, and graduate assistant. He has been to seven NCAA postseason tournaments at the Division I, II and III levels and has recruited or coached more than 30 all-conference players and 11 conference major award winners.
In his first season leading the Stags, Casey guided Fairfield to a 24-13 record -- the second-most victories in school history. Fairfield finished second in the MAAC regular season at 14-6 and advanced to the MAAC Championship Game. The Stags also participated in the CBI, winning two games in Daytona Beach to reach the Semifinals of the national tournament. Casey was named a finalist for the Hugh Durham Coach of the Year Award.
The 2023-24 Stags set a program record with 2,794 points scored as well as the highest scoring average (75.7 ppg) since 2017-18. Fairfield also knocked down a program-record 342 three-pointers, ranking 11th in the nation in conversions from beyond the arc, and amassed a program-program record 314 steals.
Individually, the Stags boasted three All-MAAC players (Jalen Leach, Caleb Fields and Brycen Goodine) for the first time since 2010-11 and two NABC All-District honorees (Leach, Fields) for the first time since 2011-12.
Previously as a head coach, Casey was a part of the MAAC for six years at Niagara from 2013-19. His tenure in Western New York included a 19-win campaign in 2017-18 that saw the Purple Eagles finish 12-6 in the MAAC as the third-seeded team in the conference. Casey recruited and coached Khalil Dukes to MAAC co-Player of the Year honors, with Matt Scott getting an All-MAAC Second Team nod in that campaign.
Casey joined Niagara after a three-year stretch at LIU Post highlighted by back-to-back East Coast Conference Championships and NCAA postseason appearances. He was the 2012 ECC Coach of the Year and Met Writers Division II Coach of the Year. Casey coached the ECC Player of the Year in each of his campaigns leading the Pioneers, Stefan Bonneau in 2011 and 2012 and Tobin Carberry in 2013.
Casey’s first head-coaching stop was at Division III Rutgers-Newark from 1998-2001. He was the New Jersey Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 2001 after leading the Scarlet Raiders to the ECAC Tournament.
Casey’s assistant coaching career began as a part of the first two Division I seasons in Central Connecticut State history from 1986-88. After a return to his alma mater Western Connecticut State for one season, a year in which the Wolves reached the Sweet Sixteen of the 1989 NCAA Division III Tournament, he reentered the Division I ranks with stops at St. Francis and Saint Peter’s. He was apart of two MAAC Championship teams with the Peacocks (1991, 1995).
Following his stint as head coach at Rutgers-Newark, Casey rejoined the staff at CCSU from 2001-06. He was a part of the Blue Devils’ 2002 NEC Championship squad and was recognized as an AFLAC National Assistant Coach of the Year in 2003. In 2006, he moved on to Norm Roberts’ staff at St. John’s for a four-year tenure that included a trip to the 2010 National Invitation Tournament.
Casey graduated from Western Connecticut State in 1986 with a Bachelor of Business Administration. He earned an M.S. in Education from Central Connecticut State in 1993.
Casey and his wife Hope have two daughters, Lauren and Jordan.
