Danny Kaspar, the basketball coach at Stephen F. Austin State University the past 13 seasons, was named the new coach at Texas State University-San Marcos on Thursday.

He guided the Lumberjacks to a 246-193 record that included five 20-win seasons in the past six years. Kaspar led SFA to three Southland Conference regular-season titles, two NIT appearances and a berth in the 2009 NCAA Championship tournament.

He has a career record of 465-193 in 21 seasons as a head coach.

“I’m very excited to be given this opportunity to coach the men’s basketball program at Texas State,” Kaspar said. “It’s got great potential and I’ve always thought of it as a place that can produce frequent championships for someone who is willing to work hard and put a lot of effort in the job.”

He will be presented the NABC District 24 Coach of the Year today at the NCAA Final Four and is a finalist for the Hugh Durham Award as the nation’s top Mid-Major head coach.

Texas State athletics director Larry Teis was excited about the hire.

“In the end, the relationships with all the high school coaches in Texas to the other AAU coaches and everyone in general was what we were really looking for,” Teis said.

“We talked to former players, mainly Jeff Foster who we relied on to help us look at some candidates. Jeff did a great job, and his number one pick was Danny Kaspar. Gregg Popovich from the San Antonio Spurs is very high on Danny and his coaching abilities, which really helped. In the end, in the state of Texas, nobody has won more games in the last six years than Danny Kaspar.”

SFA officials wished Kaspar well.

“I am very thankful for the job that Danny Kaspar has done as our men’s basketball coach,” Robert Hill, SFA director of athletics, said. “He has built SFA into a well-respected program, and a conference contender every season. We wish he, and his wife Debbie, all the best in San Marcos.”

Kaspar assembled one of the best teams in SFA program history this past season. The Lumberjacks went 27-5 (.844) and won their third SLC title by posting a 16-2 (.889) conference mark. The Lumberjacks picked up tough road wins at Florida International, Tulsa and Oklahoma. SFA closed out the season by dropping a heartbreaking one-point loss at Stanford in the NIT.

Kaspar was honored by the league following the season, being named SLC Coach of the Year. It was the second time in his career that he has received the honor.

Hill said SFA will begin a national search to find its next head coach.

Kaspar served as an assistant coach at SFA under longtime coach Harry Miller from 1983 through the 1986 seasons. During his three seasons as an assistant, the Lumberjacks recorded two 20-win seasons, won 16 games in the other season, and never finished lower than third in the conference.

A 1978 graduate of the University of North Texas, Kaspar is no stranger to winning. He spent nine seasons as the head coach at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. In his tenure, Incarnate Word posted an overall record of 219-52, which was the best record for any four-year Texas institution during the 1990s. In 1999, The Sporting News named him National Small College Coach of the Year.

His teams at Incarnate Word posted nine straight 20-win seasons, including five seasons where his teams won 25 or more games in a single campaign. Kaspar’s Incarnate Word teams also won or shared five regular season conference titles as well as four conference tournament titles. He was named the Heart of Texas Conference Coach of the Year four times during that span.

Prior to becoming a head coach, Kaspar served as an assistant for some of the legends of college basketball coaching. In addition to working under Miller, he also was on the staffs of Billy Tubbs, Gene Iba and Dr. Gerald Stockton.

During his one season with Tubbs at Lamar, the Cardinals won the Southland Conference title.

and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.

Kaspar and his wife, Deborah, have a daughter, Nicole, who is a student at Texas State.

Kaspar replaces Doug Davalos, whose contract was not renewed after seven years in San Marcos. Davalos had a record of 92-107 for the Bobcats.