Martin Bahar - Men's Basketball Coach

Martin Bahar

Title:
Assistant Coach/Director of Scouting
Email:
mbahar@usc.edu
Phone:
821-2216

Martin Bahar has been at USC for three seasons, serving as an Assistant Coach for the 2017-18 season. He served as USC’s Director of Scouting since joining the USC staff in July of 2015 and will return to those duties for the 2018-19 season. In his first two seasons at USC, Bahar has played an integral role in the program’s return to national prominence, helping the Trojans set the school record for wins with 26 in the 2016-17 and reach back-to-back NCAA Tournaments for the first time since 2009.

From 2012-15, Bahar was an assistant coach for the Fairfield University men’s basketball team out of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC). He was promoted to that position after spending the 2011-12 season as the director of basketball operations. Bahar helped the Stags earn two postseason berths, as Fairfield advanced to the 2012 and 2013 CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT). The 2012 Fairfield team won three postseason games for the first time in school history, reached the CIT semifinals and also played in the MAAC Championship game. Fairfield’s November 2012 win over Arizona State in the Old Spice Classic was the program’s 2^nd win in history over a Pac-12 opponent. Four of Bahar’s student-athletes (Rakim Sanders, Ryan Olander, Derek Needham and Maurice Barrow) signed professional contracts to play overseas during his tenure.

While at Fairfield, Bahar recruited two of the top three scorers on the 2014-15 Fairfield team and also signed student-athletes from seven different states during his tenure with the Stags. Tyler Nelson, a Boston, MA native, has emerged as one of the best players in Fairfield history and was named 2016-17 All-MAAC First Team after a spectacular junior season that saw him average 19.5 ppg while shooting 39% from three & 86% from the foul line. Nelson also ranked first in the MAAC with 36.1 minutes played per game and enters the 2017-18 season as one of the best mid-major players in America.

Bahar spent the 2010-11 season as an assistant coach at Princeton, helping the Tigers post a 25-7 overall record and capture the 2011 Ivy League championship. With that title, the Tigers advanced to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2004 where they lost to eventual NCAA runner-up Kentucky in the closing seconds. NCAA tourney runner-up Kentucky. Prior to 2010-11, Bahar served as Princeton’s Director of Basketball Operations for one season. The 2009-10 Tigers won 22 games, won two postseason games for the first time since 1998-99, and finished No. 1 in the country in scoring defense with 53.3 ppg. While at Princeton, Bahar coached Ian Hummer and Douglas Davis, two players who finished as the second and third all-time leading scorers, respectively, in school history behind only the legendary Bill Bradley.

From 2006-2009, Bahar was at Georgetown under head coach John Thompson III, where he served as a graduate assistant from 2006-08 and then as the video coordinator in 2008-09. The 2006-07 Hoyas, led by current NBA players Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert, finished 30-7, won the Big East Tournament, and reached the 2007 Final Four. The program won back-to-back Big East regular season championships in 2007 and 2008 while Bahar was a member of the staff. He earned his master’s degree in Communications, Culture, and Technology from Georgetown in 2008.

He was an undergraduate manager at Vanderbilt University until his graduation in 2006. Bahar completed a double-major in Communications and Spanish at Vanderbilt.

Bahar, a native of Potomac, Md., is married to the former Terrill Keiner who graduated from USC in 2008. The couple had their first child, Beverly Lila, in May 2016.