Former UK basketball guard Travis Ford has a new college coaching job
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- Former UK basketball guard Travis Ford will be the next coach at Arkansas-Little Rock.
- Ford played college basketball for Missouri and Kentucky from 1989 to 1994.
- Ford has previously been the coach at EKU, Massachusetts, Oklahoma State and Saint Louis.
At the start of the 2026 NCAA Tournament, only one former Kentucky men’s basketball player was the head coach of an NCAA Division I program.
Now, Mark Pope has coaching company among ex-Cats.
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock on Thursday announced Travis Ford would be the next head coach of the Trojans. The 56-year-old Ford has previously led programs at Eastern Kentucky, Massachusetts, Oklahoma State and Saint Louis.
Ford has been out of coaching since March 2024, when he parted ways with Saint Louis after eight seasons with the Billikens. Some of Ford’s downtime was spent as a basketball analyst for the SEC Network.
As a player, Ford spent the 1989-90 season as a freshman guard at Missouri following a standout career at Madisonville North Hopkins High School in the commonwealth. Then came his memorable four-season run as part of the Kentucky program from 1990-94.
Ford sat out the 1990-91 season due to transfer rules, before playing a meaningful role for Rick Pitino’s Cats. Ford was a bench player in the 1991-92 season before becoming a penciled-in starter for UK as an upperclassman. Ford was the starting point guard on UK’s 1993 Final Four team. In leading the Cats to that season’s national semifinals, Ford averaged 13.6 points and 4.9 assists per game, while shooting a blistering 52.9% from 3-point range.
Among players from the state of Kentucky, Ford has the most made 3-pointers in UK history. Ford knocked down 190 triples for the Cats.
Ford’s final season at Kentucky (1993-94) crossed over with the redshirt season Pope spent in Lexington after he transferred to the UK program from Washington.
Ford has been on the bench for a total of 759 games across 24 seasons as a college head coach. He’s taken seven teams to the NCAA Tournament: Eastern Kentucky (2005), Oklahoma State (2009, 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2015) and Saint Louis (2019). Ford is 1-7 in NCAA Tournament games, with his lone victory in March Madness coming with that 2008-09 Oklahoma State squad.
Overall, Ford is 424-335 as a Division I coach. At each school that he’s coached, Ford either took the program to at least one NCAA Tournament or won a league regular-season championship.
Prior to his time as a Division I coach, Ford was the men’s basketball head coach at Campbellsville University.
At Little Rock, Ford is replacing Darrell Walker, who was fired earlier this month after eight seasons at the helm. Little Rock was the preseason favorite to win the Ohio Valley Conference this season, but went just 12-20 overall and 9-11 in league play.
Starting next season, Little Rock will play in the United Athletic Conference. The Western Athletic Conference is rebranding as the UAC this summer.
The Trojans last made the NCAA Tournament in 2016 as a member of the Sun Belt Conference. That season, current Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard led Little Rock to a first-round upset win in March Madness over Purdue.
This story was originally published March 26, 2026 at 2:56 PM.
