Ahmad Smith joined Tony Pujol's coaching staff as an assistant coach on June 1, 2018. He was elevated to Associate Head Coach at UNA in March of 2023. He enters his eighth season on the North Alabama staff and his third as Associate Head Coach in 2025-26.
Prior to UNA, he served as Associate Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator at Charleston Southern.
Smith has played a valuable role in UNA's success over the first seven seasons of the Division I era, helping head coach Tony Pujol build a yearly contender in the Atlantic Sun Conference.Â
In the 2024-25 season, Smith helped the Lions finish with a 24-11 record and a 14-4 record in conference play. The Lions won a share of the ASUN Regular Season Championship, won both the ASUN Quarterfinal and Semifinal rounds in front of two sellout crowds at CB&S Bank Arena, and advanced to the ASUN Championship Game for the second time in seven seasons. Despite falling in the championship to Lipscomb, UNA earned an at-large bid to the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) for the first time in school history.
In seven seasons at North Alabama, Smith has helped the Lions reached the ASUN Conference Tournament each year. During his tenure, UNA has had 15 all-conference selections, including six on the league's All-Freshman Team and two All-Academic picks. While working with the post players, Smith has also coached the ASUN's leading rebounder three times over seven seasons, including 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2024-25.
Under Smith's front-court leadership, UNA was one of two NCAA Division I schools in 2025 to have two players with 300 or more rebounds, joining Sweet Sixteen participant Maryland. UNA's two top rebounders were Corneilous Williams (317) and Taye Fields (300), who both ranked among the top 50 rebounders in the country.
In 2019, Smith was invited to participate in the TopConnect Virtual Seminar, which identifies the top basketball assistant coaches in the country.
Smith, a 2004 Appalachian State graduate, was an integral part of one of the best stretches in Charleston Southern history as an assistant coach during his seven years on staff.
A former player and coach at Appalachian State, Smith helped CSU go 19-12 in 2011-12 and the Buccaneers won their first Big South Tournament game since 2006. CSU again ranked among the Big South's best rebounding teams in 2013-14, tallying a nearly +3.0 margin on the glass.
CSU won its second Big South regular season title in three years in 2014-15, and advanced to the NIT. The Bucs put together the winningest regular season in the program's 50-year history thanks in part to its ability to rebound the basketball. CSU ranked 2nd in the Big South in both rebounding margin and offensive rebounds, and was 20th nationally in the latter category with Smith as posts coach.
Smith was promoted to the role of Assistant Head Coach/Recruiting Coordinator at Charleston Southern in August of 2015.
Smith returned to college coaching after spending three years in several capacities, including that of head coach, in Ireland.
Smith went to CSU from Dublin, Ireland, where he honed his coaching skills from 2008 on. Most recently, Smith served as the technical director for the Templeogue Basketball Club. He was also the head basketball coach for the Men's Division I, U17 and U18 teams. In 2011, the Division I men's team finished fifth, improving five spots from the year before Smith's arrival.
Prior to that, Smith was the head men's and women's basketball coach at Institute of Technology Tallaght College in Dublin, finished as the 2011 women's team champions and the 2011 men's team runners-up. He holds a career 74-45 record as a head coach, including time with the Colaiste Eanna High School U19 Boys (2009-2011), and the Shamrock Rovers Hoops Professional Superleague, where he coached from August 2008 to March 2010.
Before leaving for Ireland, Smith was an assistant coach at Appalachian State University from 2004-08, helping lead the Mountaineers to a school-record 25 wins in 2006-07, a North Division regular season SoCon Championship in 2008 and a San Juan Shootout Tournament championship in 2007.
As a player, Smith spent two years at Cedar Valley Junior College, earning NJCAA All-American honors while leading his team to an NJCAA National Championship in 2001. He earned the school's student-athlete award and earned multiple conference honors, including all-conference and freshman of the year honors, before moving on to play two years for the Mountaineers in the Southern Conference.
He and his wife, Teresa, have a son, Tristan.
