19th Season
Mercer County Community College men's basketball players may not realize their head coach Howard Levy is giving them a little piece of many great coaches. Nearly 25 years after finishing as Princeton’s career leader…Levy took over the Mercer men’s basketball program in 2008 and is entering his 19th year as Head Coach.
Levy got his 200th career win in the 2025-26 season and also won his second Region 19 Championship. After starting the season 0-8, Levy helped lead a remarkable turnaround, finishing the season 20-12 and as Region Champions. Levy was named the 2026 Region 19 Coach of the Year. In addition to winning the Region Championship, Mercer men’s basketball were Garden State Athletic Conference Champions. Levy has coached four All-Americans (Mustafa El-Amin, David Johnson, Donovon Guess and Joell Idrovo) in addition to numerous All-Region and All-Conference players. Idrovo earned All-American honors for the 2025-2026 season.
Levy played under Basketball Hall of Famer Pete Carril, former Princeton University Head Coach and Phil Jackson, a future Hall of Famer and current Head Coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, who has won a record 10 NBA Championships. Levy also coached alongside many other excellent coaches, including John Thompson III of Georgetown University, who began his coaching career at Princeton University.
Standing 6 feet, 10 inches, Levy is someone his players can look up to in more ways than one. As a center at Princeton, he starred for Carril on Ivy League Championship Teams in 1983 and 1984 and shot 64.7 percent over his career before he graduated with a Bachelors Degree in History in 1985. He then earned a gold medal as a member of the U.S. Team that traveled to Israel for the 1985 Maccabiah Games. After a tryout with the New Jersey Nets, he played for the Albany Patroons under Coach Phil Jackson in the old Continental Basketball Association. He later spent a year playing professionally in Australia.
Levy began his coaching career during the 1986-87 season at Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey) before he spent three seasons from 1987-90 as an assistant coach at George Washington University while pursuing his law degree. He went on to serve as a Volunteer Assistant Coach at Princeton for 11 seasons from 1996-2007, when the Tigers appeared in four NCAA tournaments and three NITs.
The Princeton resident is the president and co-founder of Hypnotic Hats, Inc., a successful New York-based apparel and accessories company. Levy He and his wife, Riva, have two daughters, Mia and Noa, and a son, Lior.