Cunningham comes to Missouri State after spending the previous season on the coaching staff at Army in 2023-24.
He joined the Black Knights after 10 seasons as a collegiate head coach, most recently with five seasons at Incarnate Word from 2018-23. Prior to that, he was the head coach at Carroll College in Montana from 2013-18, where he led them to two NAIA Final Eight appearances.
With an over-arching coaching philosophy of winning, studying and serving, Cunningham's teams at UIW were consistently among the nation's best in terms of GPA, earning the NABC Honors Court distinction multiple times, while consistently boasting prolific national rankings in most defensive and shooting categories.
He took over the UIW program on March 22, 2018 and a year later, guided the Cardinals to the top free throw percentage in Division I (.810). Also, in Cunningham's second season (2019-20), Keaston Willis earned Southland Conference Freshman of the Year, a first in program history. In year three (2020-21), UIC turned in a 3.37 Fall GPA and qualified six players for Academic All-Conference consideration, while the team won half its conference road games. In 2021-22, UIW boasted the Southland Student-Athlete of the Year in Josh Morgan, compiled a 3.23 team GPA and logged a perfect 1,000 APR score with four players on the Southland Conference All-Academic team. Likewise, the Cardinals shot 37.4 percent from 3-point range to lead the Southland and rank 30th nationally. In Cunningham's final season, UIW set a school-record with 259 steals and boasted three academic all-conference players. Cunningham was 42-105 in his tenure at UIW.
Prior to his arrival at Carroll College, the program had only two wins the previous season. Five years later, his team was enjoying its third-straight appearance in the NAIA Division I national tournament. In five years with the Saints, Cunningham's teams were a combined 107-52 (.673) overall, reaching the 100-win plateau in just 150 games. His teams enjoyed four consecutive winning seasons, won two Frontier Conference regular season titles, two conference tournament championships, three NAIA National Tournament berths and a pair of Final Eight appearances.
The 2015-16 Carroll squad made a Final Eight run and boasted an impressive 3.40 team GPA. The next year, the Saints returned to the Final Eight, produced first-team All-American Zach Taylor and finished No. 3 nationally with a 3.2 team GPA. Finally, in 2017-18, Cunningham's last season at Carroll, he won conference Coach of the Year, guided Carroll to conference regular-season and tournament championships and to the NAIA DI tournament for the third consecutive year. Likewise, his team led the NAIA DI in field goal and free throw percentage. Three of his players won all-conference awards, including NAIA DI National Player of the Year, Ryan Imhoff.
His playing experience includes earning Freshman All-America status at Oregon State in 1997 before leading Purdue to the NCAA Sweet 16 twice and the Elite Eight once from 1998 to 2001. As a freshman, he broke Gary Payton's OSU freshman scoring record. The next year, he returned to Indiana to play for coach Gene Keady at Purdue. As a three-year starter with the Boilermakers, he logged 1,000 points, distributed just under 400 assists and logged 163 rebounds while earning Academic All-America honors twice. He later played professionally in the CBA and Europe for three seasons with playing stints for the Gary Steelheads and the Rockford Lightning before continuing his career overseas in Estonia and Australia.
Cunningham earned his degree in History from Purdue in 2001. He served an instructor in the History Department and later the Department of Cinema and Digital Media at DePaul from 2006-13. Concurrently, he coached the varsity boys' basketball team Andrean Catholic High School for five seasons, his alma mater in Merrillville, Ind., where he guided the 59ers to 43 wins in their final 50 games.
While teaching at DePaul and coaching at Andrean, Cunningham continued to pursue graduate studies. He earned an MBA from DePaul in 2013 and later also earned a Ph.D. in History from Purdue in 2006 and is the author of five books.
Cunningham and his wife, Christy, a former volleyball player at Purdue, have six children: daughters Caroline, Catie Joy, and Mabeline Lucille, and sons Case, Indiana, and Bennet.
