Maleik Agee’s career started with a question.
Agee grew up in Niagara Falls and participated in Bill Beilein’s summer basketball camps at SUNY Niagara. Then he attended the school himself, staying in touch with Beilein sporadically over the years.
At the time, Agee was coaching for Sanquin Starks’ 716 United travel team, but he was looking for more. With Beilein’s permission, Agee attended some SUNY Niagara practices in the fall of 2022 to see if he could pick up any tips or tricks to use for his own team.
Finally, Agee just asked Beilein if he could use an assistant. Beilen said he could, as did SUNY Niagara women’s coach Nate Beutel. And Agee started working with both teams.
After one season as a part-time assistant for the women’s team, Beutel asked Agee to come aboard all the time. So Agee spent the last two seasons coaching both teams as the Thunderwolves made the NJCAA Division II tournament in both seasons, for both genders.
And then new University at Buffalo coach Kristen Sharkey hired Beutel as an assistant. Agee was stunned, but then he got a call from SUNY Niagara interim athletic director Bob McKeown.
Bing, bang, boom. Agee is now running one of the top-20 Division II junior college programs in the country three years into his college coaching career.
“I told (Beutel) all this past year I wasn’t interested in becoming a head coach yet,” Agee said. “… It just kind of fell into my hands and my lap, but I feel like both those guys prepared me to become a head coach. Practice, planning, skill development, dealing with kids on and off the court, as far as being student-athletes and doing things in the classroom to help get those kids to four-year programs.”
Agee spent seven years coaching youth basketball, but college was a completely different animal. Beilein and Beutel taught Agee about practice plans, skill development, academic development and all the other intricacies involved with JUCO basketball.
But Agee had also never coached women’s basketball before joining the staff at SUNY Niagara. Niagara Falls and the men’s JUCO game use athletic run and jump styles, while the women’s game is heavily predicated on fundamentals. And sometimes men’s and women’s players speak a different language on the court, but that happened to be Agee’s natural gift.
“What I noticed right away is he had a coaching voice,” Beilein said. “He had a coaching voice that could reach out to the players and garnish their attention once he recognized what they were doing inefficiently.”
Once Agee learned how and when to communicate with players, he started focusing on the strategic part of the game. Winning close games often comes down to miniscule details and both SUNY Niagara programs were rooted in the finite parts of the game.
Over time, Agee picked up more responsibility because Beilein could see that his assistant was craving more. From scouting to video preparation to individual player development, Agee was able to help in every facet of the program.
“Everything we do is well-detailed, well-oriented and it’s all about our preparation,” Beilein said. “And you could see how Maleik just bought into, ‘Oh, this is how you become successful? Well, this is the way that we’re going to need to do it.’”
But now Agee has to put his own spin on the program after nearly 15 years of a constant voice. SUNY Niagara head never won a Region III Division II championship before Beutel took over as the coach 13 seasons ago, but the Thunderwolves have won the last seven.
Beutel produced eight All-Americans and nearly 50 all-region players, with almost 40 going to play for four-year programs. That’s all while going 314-76 during his career. Agee isn’t going to change much of the process, but he understands he can’t do everything the way Beutel did it.
“It’s pretty much the same style, honestly,” Agee said. “Playing fast, shoot a lot of 3s. But I’m from the Falls. So it’s all about stops and scores. That defensive end is going to matter first and that’s going to help us get out in transition. It’s just having fun with the game.”