Oct. 15, 2008

ARLINGTON, Texas - UT Arlington head men's basketball coach Scott Cross has finalized his coaching staff for the upcoming season with the addition of assistant coach Allan Adams and director of operations Zak Buncik. The Mavericks enter 2008-09 after a historic season a year ago, which included a school-record 21-12 overall record and the program's first appearance at the NCAA Tournament.

Adams joins the Mavericks' staff after spending the two previous years as the video coordinator with the New Mexico State men's basketball program.

"Allan brings a wealth of experience to our basketball program," Cross said. "Being a part of programs like New Mexico State, Virginia and Stetson, as well as being a head coach at the high school level, will bring new life and ideas into our program."

"His academic monitoring system will be a huge boost to the success of our student-athletes. He is extremely organized and brings a lot of initiative which will help us out tremendously as we move forward this season."

Adams contributed to consecutive championship seasons with the Aggies in the Western Athletic Conference. New Mexico State won the 2007 WAC Tournament championship to earn a bid to the NCAA Tournament and then finished in a four-way tie for the 2008 WAC regular season title.

He also previously worked at the University of Virginia (2004-06) as a graduate assistant coach, and as the director of men's basketball operations at Stetson University (2003-04) while completing his post-graduate work.

Adams began his collegiate coaching career as a volunteer assistant coach at Central Florida Community College (1998-2000). He also has five years of experience coaching at the high school level. During one of his stints while coaching high school basketball, Adams helped produce 12 college bound players, including nine players who played for NCAA Division I programs in two seasons at Shores Christian Academy in Ocala, Fla.

A native of Fort Worth, Buncik has worked more than 15 basketball camps from 2006-08, including camps at Texas and Stanford. Buncik has also spent time working at the U.S. Elite camp, the NBA D-League Pre-Draft camp and the prestigious Howie Garfinkel Five-Star camp.

"Zak was a student assistant/manager for us during my first year as head coach, and was one of the best that we have ever had" Cross said. "I knew that he had a desire to coach, and I'm extremely thankful that he was able to join our staff again this year."

"He has done a tremendous job as our video coordinator and has worked really hard to help us monitor the academic success of our student-athletes." Buncik also spent four years on the sidelines coaching, including stops at River Oaks Castleberry High School (2003-04), Arlington Sam Houston High School (2004-06, 2007-08) and UT Arlington (2006-07).