Joe O'Brien enters his sixth season at the helm of the Idaho State University basketball program leading the Bengals to three Big Sky tournament appearances, two straight semifinal appearances in the last five years. All told, O'Brien will be celebrating his 27th season in the collegiate ranks.

O'Brien, one of only three coaches to ever win three Junior College National Championships was named the 20th head coach in Idaho State's rich basketball history at a press conference in the Little Wood River Room of the Pond Student Union Building on March 22, 2006. Since that time, despite annually playing one of the nation's toughest non-conference schedules, the Bengals have proven to be among the Big Sky elite.

In his first season, his fiery on-court presence inspired a short-handed team to battle eight NCAA Tournament teams on the way to a deceiving 13-17 record. The Bengals faced the likes of Oregon, Texas A&M, and others, including road overtime losses to #13 Marquette and Brigham Young. At one point, Idaho State's RPI was a lofty 82 as the Bengals had the country's 25th toughest non-conference schedule.

Idaho State also won their first five conference games before several heartbreaking setbacks hurt their title chances. Still, O'Brien presided over a pair of All-Big Sky selections in David Schroeder (First Team) and Akbar Abdul-Ahad (Honorable Mention), and he led the Bengals to a tie for fifth place, where the Bengals eventually lost in overtime at Montana in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament.

In 2007-08 it was more of the same as the Bengals finished just 12-19 after playing another brutal schedule including top 10 programs  UCLA and Washington State, along with a host of other elite and big conference names, including Iowa, Brigham Young, Washington, and Utah.

Despite the tough non-conference slate that eventually was ranked 24th in the nation, the Bengals finished 8-8 in the Big Sky, tying for fourth place and hosting a first-round conference tournament game. ISU advanced to the semifinals of the league tournament for the first time in five seasons, and ISU kept it up last season as well.

In 2008-09, the Bengals had the nation's 14th toughest schedule, and at one time it was ranked #1 in the nation. The rise of ISU's program reached big heights during the season, including the teams' first-ever showing on ESPN, as ISU took on Hawai'i in the islands as part of ESPN's 24-hours of basketball. The Bengals turned that tough non-conference schedule into a 9-7 Big Sky record and another semifinal appearance.

Among those wins was a stellar 7-1 home record in the Big Sky, and a home sweep of Montana and Montana State, ISU's first home sweep of the Montana's in over 12 years. The Bengals have won 25 games in Big Sky play under O'Brien, and that number represents the most wins for Idaho State over a three-year span in conference play since the 1976-78 seasons when ISU advanced to the elite eight.

A veteran of 27 seasons of collegiate basketball, including 13 as the head coach at a pair of NJCAA institutions, O'Brien carried with him a tremendous background to Idaho State. One of the JC ranks' most successful coaches, O'Brien owned a career head junior college coaching mark of 313-117, a .728 winning percentage.

He earned his first collegiate head coaching job at Lincoln College in Lincoln, Illinois, where he led the Lynx to four straight 20-win seasons, including a 25-6 mark in 1993-94. While at Lincoln, O'Brien amassed a 100-53 record over his five seasons, before taking over at Southeastern Community College in 1996, where he led the BlackHawks to unprecedented success. During his eight seasons at SEICC, O'Brien had eight winning seasons, including four 20-win seasons, and three other 30-win seasons.

In 1999-2000, the BlackHawks went 32-4 in winning their first NJCAA national championship. The following two seasons saw the BlackHawks go 25-8 and 25-10 with a Region XI Championship. In 2002-03 and 2003-04, the BlackHawks won back-to-back national titles, going 37-1 in 02-03, and 32-4 in 03-04. In his eight seasons with SEICC, the BlackHawks went 213-64. With his third title, O'Brien joined Ronnie Arrow and Allen Bradfield as the only coaches with three national titles at that level. Overall, O'Brien is one of only 11 people to have three national titles either at the JC or the NCAA level. In 2008, he received the ultimate honor, as he was inducted into the National Junior College Athletic Association Hall of Fame.

O'Brien got his start in coaching at the collegiate level in 1982-83, when he spent the first of two seasons at Southeastern Louisiana University. He then served as an assistant coach at Central Missouri State for five years, helping CMS to three 20-win seasons and two NCAA Tournament appearances before moving on to Lincoln College. O'Brien spent the 2004-05 season as an assistant at Florida International, helping the Golden Panthers to go from 13-43 over the previous two seasons to a 13-17 mark, FIU's best record in the previous six seasons.

O'Brien has earned six national Coach of the Year honors, two each in 2000, 2003, and 2004, plus three District XI Coach of the Year honors. Joe has also spent time in the prep ranks as an assistant coach at Jonesboro-Hodge and Natchitoches High Schools in Louisiana, and as the head coach at Episcopal High School for one season, 1981-82.

O'Brien was a four-year letterman at Monmouth College in Illinois, where he served as a captain as a senior, and helped Monmouth make the NCAA tournament as a freshman. He graduated in 1977 from Monmouth with a B.A. in Physical Education/Biology, and he earned his Master's from Northwestern State in Health, Physical Education, and Recreation.