Shane Nichols is the associate head coach for La Salle men’s basketball in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He joined the program in March 2025 after following his younger brother from Radford, where he had served as an assistant coach. Nichols arrived at La Salle with a background that included postseason success at multiple mid-major programs and experience helping build winning teams. At Radford, Nichols helped the Highlanders post a 68-63 record over four seasons, including two 20-win campaigns. In 2024-25, Radford finished 20-13. Earlier, in 2022-23, the Highlanders went 21-15 overall and 12-6 in Big South play, earned a bid to the College Basketball Invitational, and won multiple postseason games in a single season for the first time in program history.
During his time there, Radford averaged more than 15 wins per season. Before Radford, Nichols spent six seasons at Murray State, where he was part of one of the Ohio Valley Conference’s strongest runs. The Racers won three straight OVC regular-season championships from 2017-18 through 2019-20 and captured back-to-back OVC tournament titles in 2017-18 and 2018-19. During that period, Nichols helped recruit and develop Ja Morant, who became an All-American and later an All-NBA player. His earlier coaching experience included assistant roles at Hofstra and Niagara under Joe Mihalich, and he began his career at his alma mater, Wofford, where he helped the Terriers reach the 2011 NCAA Tournament. As a player at Wofford, Nichols was a multi-time All-Big South guard and later played professionally overseas.
