CJ Rivers - Men's Basketball Coach - Marquette University Athletics

CJ Rivers

Title :
Assistant Coach
E-Mail:
carleton.rivers@marquette.edu
Phone:
288-7130
Experience :
Second Year
Alma Mater:
Drake, 2018

The 2025-26 Marquette University men's basketball campaign will mark the first for CJ Rivers as an assistant coach with the program.

Rivers arrived on campus after serving as an assistant coach at Colorado State (2023-24) under head coach Niko Medved. The Rams concluded the season 25-11 overall and participated in the NCAA tournament, earning a victory over Virginia.

In 2024-25, the Golden Eagles posted their third-straight 20-win season and participated in the NCAA tournament four the fourth-straight year. On the court, Kam Jones developed into a Consensus All-America selection, marking the third-straight year a Marquette player captured the accolade. MU also posted a standout season in the classroom, highlighted by a 3.28 team grade-point-average and Stevie Mitchell was named BIG EAST Scholar-Athlete of the Year and a CSC First Team Academic All-American.

The Cahokia, Illinois native also spent two seasons (2019-21) with CSU as a graduate assistant and in between his stints in Fort Collins he worked as the video coordinator at Loyola (2021-22) and an assistant coach at Illinois-Chicago (2022-23).

Rivers helped the Ramblers to a 25-8 record, a second-straight conference title and a trip to the NCAA tournament. UIC competed in its first season in the Missouri Valley Conference during his lone year with the team and he helped develop second team all-conference selection Jace Carter.

In his first two years with Colorado State, the Rams posted back-to-back 20-win campaigns and a trip to the National Invitation Tournament in 2020-21.

As a four-year starter at Drake, Rivers helped the Bulldogs to their first postseason appearance in 10 years.

Rivers played professionally for a season for the Sturt Sabres of the Premier League NBL 1 in Australia, where he led the team in assists and steals. He earned his bachelor's degree in broadcast news journalism from Drake in 2018 and master’s degree in human resource studies at CSU in 2021.