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Walter Roese begins his first year as assistant coach on Bill Grier¹s staff.
Roese comes to USD from BYU where he had been an assistant coach the past two seasons. When he first joined BYU in 2005 he became the first Brazilian full-time assistant coach in NCAA Division I Men's Basketball. The 2006-07 season proved one of the best seasons a Cougar team has ever achieved in the program¹s 105-year history as they posted a program-best 25-9 overall record. With his outstanding knowledge of the game and large international recruiting network, Roese is a valuable addition to the USD coaching staff. A 1994 graduate in International Business Administration from BYU-Hawaii, Roese earned an MBA at BYU in 2003 before serving as BYU¹s director of basketball operations under former Cougar coach Steve Cleveland for two years. Roese coached the Brazilian Junior National Team helping his native country qualify for the 2007 World Cup. This past summer, he was the head coach for the World University games in Thailand for Brazil. He also previously served as a volunteer assistant at BYU-Hawaii under Ken Wagner after finishing his professional playing career.
A native of Novo Hamburgo in southern Brazil, Roese played seven years professionally in Brazil and Italy after graduating from BYU-Hawaii. He has represented the Brazilian National Team and professional clubs at four World Cup tournaments and several international championships in Europe, Asia and South and North America, winning state, national and South America championships. Roese has experience at nearly every level of the college game. He attended the University of Houston, West Texas A&M and BYU-Hawaii while playing at the Division I, Division II and NAIA levels. He was the MVP of the Lone Star Conference in 1992 while playing at West Texas A&M, and was a Scholar-Athlete All-American at BYU-Hawaii.
Roese comes from an athletic family that has seen six members participate at the Olympic level in basketball, volleyball and tennis. Fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese, Roese and his wife Monique are the parents of two children, Leonardo and Agatha.
