St. Peter's to hire Wagner's Bashir Mason as next men's head basketball coach, source tells ESPN

Coming off a historic run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, Saint Peter's University is making a coaching hire that shows a commitment to returning to the postseason.

The school is hiring Wagner's Bashir Mason as the school's next head coach, a source told ESPN. A deal is expected to be finalized on Monday, and the move to bring in an experienced and established head coach is indicative of the school's commitment to keeping the program competitive in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.

Mason replaces Shaheen Holloway, who returned to his alma mater, Seton Hall, after he led St. Peter's on a run to become the first No. 15 seed in NCAA Tournament history to reach the Elite Eight.

In hiring Mason, St. Peter's shows some of the ambition that can come with experiencing such a run. Mason is an established head coach in the Northeast corridor, having led Wagner to three NEC regular season championships since 2015. He's also from Jersey City, which is where St. Peter's is located and makes for a homecoming.

Mason is 165-130 in his 10 seasons as Wagner's head coach and has won more than 62-percent of his conference games over that time. Among Wagner's accomplishments, in his time there, are three Northeast Conference coach of the year awards, an upset of No. 18 UConn in 2016 and an NIT win over St. Bonaventure the same season.

Mason, 38, was the youngest head coach in the country when he got hired back in 2012. He replaced Dan Hurley after Hurley left for Rhode Island. Mason also played for Hurley in high school at St. Benedict's in Newark.

Mason brings a history of consistent and competitive program building. In six of his 10 seasons at Wagner, the school finished in first or second place in the NEC.

He takes on a