Luke Murray, the second son of Bill Murray, has been named the head coach of the Boston College men’s basketball team after a successful five-season stint as the assistant men’s basketball coach of the University of Connecticut.
Murray, 40, the son of the Oscar-nominated Lost in Translation actor and his first wife, Margaret Kelly, becomes Boston College’s 14th head coach in program history, taking over for Earl Grant, who was fired earlier this month after a five-year tenure and only one winning season.
“Today marks a turning point in Boston College Men’s Basketball,” Blake James, the director of athletics at Boston College, said in a statement Thursday. “In Luke Murray, we have found a leader who does not just understand the modern landscape of college basketball — he has helped define it.”
Citing Murray’s “sophisticated offensive vision” and “relentless pursuit of excellence,” James said he is “the perfect fit to lead our student-athletes.”
“We are thrilled to welcome Luke, his wife, Kara, and their family to the BC community,” he concluded.
During his time at UConn, Murray helped lead the men’s basketball team to five straight NCAA Tournament appearances and two consecutive national championships in 2023 and 2024.
“I am deeply honored and incredibly grateful to lead the Boston College Men’s Basketball program,” Murray said. “BC is a university with a prestigious academic reputation and a storied basketball tradition. Boston College alumni and fans will find our program defined by a standard of excellence, and our team will play an unselfish, tough, and highly competitive brand of basketball. I am excited to get to work to build this proud program. Go Eagles!”
Murray has more than a decade of basketball coaching experience. Before UConn, he held assistant coaching roles at the University of Louisville, Xavier University, the University of Rhode Island, Towson University and Wagner College.
In 2015, Murray married Kara Cassidy. The pair have three children.
He is one of six sons of Bill Murray. The Groundhog Day star also has his eldest son, Homer, 43, with his first wife, and four sons — Caleb, 33, Jackson, 30, Cooper, 29, and Lincoln, 20 — with his second wife, Jennifer Butler, whom he divorced in 2008 after 11 years of marriage.
While Murray played basketball in high school, he ultimately realized he was not good enough to play Division I in college. Instead, he defaulted to coaching, telling USA Today Sports in 2017 that even at 14, he was scouting basketball players.
“I think he thought it was a strange hobby to have when I was a kid,” Murray said of his father. “But now he sees how far it’s come, and he’s really proud of it.”