For 17 seasons, Sam Walker roamed the sidelines of The University Fieldhouse in Commerce, racking up wins, winning conference championships, and taking teams to the NCAA tournament. Walker was a mainstay in the University community. He had broken Jim Gudger’s record, he had become the standard as far as most wins in a career, but like all coaches, he had hit a slump in the early 2010’s with a Lone Star conference that was absolutely packed with talent, and an atheltic department that was not supportive of his team, nor any team it seemed.

That’s when Walker got the “new athletic director boost.”

For 5 miserable seasons, Walker had to work under Carlton Cooper, who gave him no help, and made Lion athletics……pardon the expression……hell to work for. That all changed when Cooper was placed on paid administrative leave and never came back to Commerce in late 2012. In early 2013, Ryan Ivey was named athletic director and while he said he could not promise championships, he could promise to try to make Commerce the place it could be.

Then, the Men’s Basketball program started on that same road.

2013-14 Season-19-9

2014-15 Season-24-8, Lone Star Conference Tournament Champions, NCAA First Round

2015-2016-17-11

2016-2017………

Walker and the Lions were riding high, and even though Ivey left for Austin Peay University and Tim McMurray came in, the Lion program continued it’s ascent back into a premeir Division II program. The Lions started off fast by going 9-1 in their first 10 games, most of them blowouts, and it looked like this team had it all to win the conference and go back to the dance. Over the next 7 games, the Lions pushed their record 14-3 overall, including a wild win over a ranked West Texas A&M overtime win in Commerce 104-103 that became somewhat of an internet sensation overnight with the nature of the wild finish. It looked like the momentum was going to where the Lions would yet again battle another set of top teams for the big crown, but the Lions won only 4 of their next 5 games to close the regular season with an 18-9 record.

In the first round of the LSC tournament, the LIons knocked off a tough Cameron 54-52 to give Walker his 285th career win, and the team to advanced to the semifinals where they dropped a 76-63 loss to conference champion and LSC newcomer Texas-Permian Basin. The Lions had been in the top half of the conference, but were now hanging by a thread in the South Central Regional rankings, hoping to be one of the top 7 teams called.

That following Sunday, the Lions were called at the 6th seed and had another date with West Texas A&M. The game was winnable, as the Lions had beaten the Buffs earlier that year and had only lost to them by 2 in their rematch in Canyon.

In his final game, Walker and the Lions gave it everything they had, but could not match WT’s hot shooting and the Buffs would down the Lions 97-86. Nobody knew it would be Walker’s final game after the South Central Regional ended, which ended with Colorado Mines defeating West Texas in the Sweet 16 game. Mines would lose in the Elite 8.

In the Spring of that year, just a few weeks after the season, Walker announced his retirement to take another position with the University. He had been in Commerce since 1993 as an assistant to the legendary Paul Peak, and was the longest tenured coach in program history. He finished with 285 total wins, 11 winning seasons, a conference championship, a conference tournament championship, a Sweet 16 apperance, and 3 apperances in the NCAA Division II tournament, and kept the LIons in the upper tier of the conference for most of his 17 seasons. Most importantly, he had finished strong in his final 4 seasons, going 79-39, a 67% winning percentage, setting the stage for Lion basketball to continue strong after he had hung up his whistle.

2017 Texas A&M-Commerce Lions Basketball

NCAA Division II First Round