Nathan Kennedy enters his fifth season on staff at Arkansas Tech and his first as the Associate Head Coach.
Kennedy initially joined the Wonder Boys staff prior to the 2020-21 season when head coach Mark Downey was announced to be making his return to Tech as the head coach earlier that summer.
After helping lead the Wonder Boys to their first winning season in five years in 2022-23, Kennedy aided in elevating the program to another level this past season in 2023-24 as the Wonder Boys went 25-7 overall and 18-4 in the Great American Conference. The Wonder Boys would claim a share of the GAC Regular Season Championship and later an automatic bid to the NCAA Central Region Tournament after winning the GAC Tournament Championship. The regular season title was the 22nd all-time for the Wonder Boys and the first since 2013-14 while the tournament crown was the fifth all-time and the first since 2014-15.
Prior to his appointment at Tech, Kennedy was an assistant coach on Downey's staff at the University of Charleston (Charleston, W.Va.) for two seasons from 2010-11 to 2011-12 and at the University of West Alabama (Livingston, Ala.) for one season (2013-14) while most recently serving as an assistant coach at Northeastern State University (Tahlequah, Okla.) the past three seasons (2017-18 – 2019-20).
Kennedy's time alongside Downey have yielded a tremendous amount of success. Three times the two have helped lead their program to the NCAA Tournament with appearances while at Charleston in 2011-12, their lone season at West Alabama in 2013-14 and this past season at Tech in 2023-24. In 10 seasons coaching alongside one another their teams have won over 150 games and have posted six winning seasons.
In joining Downey's staff upon his initial hire at Northeastern State in 2017-18, Kennedy helped guide the turnaround of that program that saw an increase in wins each season, culminating with 18 victories in 2019-20. In the season prior to Downey and Kennedy's arrival in Tahlequah, the program had won just five games and hadn't won double-digit games since 2013-14.
