Jim Saia

High school career

Born in San Francisco, Saia prepped at Sir Francis Drake High in San Anselmo, California and graduated in 1982. He was a member of the basketball team that won the 1982 California state championship with a 34-0 record. There he was teammates with Steve Lavin.

College career

Saia started his college basketball playing career at Cal Poly in the 1983–84 season, after redshirting a year. That season, he averaged 1.2 points and 0.4 rebounds in 19 games. He then transferred to College of Marin for the 1984–85 season and finished at Chapman University for his final two years, where he would join his childhood friend Steve Lavin. Saia graduated from Chapman in 1987.

Coaching career

Saia began his coaching career as an assistant under Lou Campanelli at California in the 1988–89 season then was an assistant at Indiana State in the 1989–90 season and Fresno State from 1990 to 1994.

From 1994 to 1996, Saia was head coach at Columbia College, a junior college in Sonora, California. He led Columbia to a 61–10 cumulative record, two Central Valley Conference titles, and an appearance in the Final Eight round of the 1996 CCCAA tournament.

Saia then returned to the Division I level as an assistant at UCLA under Steve Lavin, a position for which Saia stayed from 1996 until 2003, after Lavin was fired. At UCLA, Saia coached future NBA players like Baron Davis, Earl Watson, Jason Kapono, and Matt Barnes.

Originally an assistant in the 2004–05 season, Saia took over as interim head coach at USC after the firing of Henry Bibby in December. USC went 10–15 for the rest of the season under Saia.

Saia returned to the junior college ranks as an assistant coach at Citrus in the 2006-07 season. From 2007 to 2010, Saia was head coach at Fresno Pacific University, an NAIA school. At Fresno Pacific, Saia had a 70–29 overall record with two NAIA Tournament appearances.

On May 25, 2010, Cal State San Marcos hired Saia as its inaugural men's basketball head coach. The program's first season was in 2011–12, in which Cal State San Marcos competed in the NAIA level and advanced to the Association of Independent Institutions (AII) title game. In the 2012-13 season, Saia led Cal State San Marcos to its first appearance in the NAIA Tournament. Cal State San Marcos later had two straight seasons with 30 or more wins in 2013–14 and 2014–15, and Saia won AII Coach of the Year honors both seasons. Saia coached at Cal State San Marcos through the 2015–16 season, its first in the NCAA Division II level and California Collegiate Athletic Association and in which the team finished 15–12.

Cal State Los Angeles hired Saia as head coach on June 6, 2016.

Personal

Saia and his wife, Stacey, have three daughters and a son.

Saia is close friends with Steve Lavin, having played on the same team with him at Sir Francis Drake High School and Chapman University, and served as an assistant coach when Lavin was UCLA's head coach.