In the 56 years of Arizona Western College, the Men’s Basketball program is the only team that competed when the doors opened in 1963 and are still active today. Not only did the team compete from the beginning, it won. In fact, of those 55 teams, only three were saddled with losing records by the season’s end.

Winning has been a hallmark of Matador Basketball from the beginning. The very first Matador Basketball game was an 88-65 victory over Imperial Valley College and AWC never looked back. In the first season as a program, the Matadors finished with a 13-8 record under Marion Moss who won 73 games in five seasons, producing a 24-3 record in the 1966 season, punching the program’s first-ever ticket to the NJCAA National Tournament. The 1966 team featured a leading scorer by the name of Nate Achibald who would go on to star at the University of Texas at El Paso before embarking on a hall-of-fame career in the NBA with the Cincinnati and Kansas City Kings, New York Nets, Boston Celtics, and Milwaukee Bucks.

John Whisenant took over the Matadors’ program in 1968 and would lead the Matadors for four seasons, a stretch that would include a 34-win season and a National Tournament appearance in 1971-72, starting the stretch of seven national tournament appearances in eight seasons under three head coaches.

After the departure of Whisenant, Joey Gardner was promoted from assistant to head coach in 1973 and continued the winning tradition, winning 33 games, and putting together a 33-4 record in the 1973-74 season. Bob Banfield led the Matadors for four seasons following Gardner, averaging 28 wins over those four seasons in charge.

The keys of the program were turned over to the longtime assistant Jim Amick in 1978 and over the course of 12 seasons, Amick would etch his name into the Arizona Western Matadors’ record book by becoming the program's winningest coach. The Matadors won 278 games under Amick and made two more appearances at the NJCAA National Tournament.

Chic Hess continued the success built by Amick after taking over in 1989, leading the Matadors to the national championship game in 1991, falling to Aquinas Junior College (TN). Trevor Ruffin would start for the Matadors in the 1991-92 season after transferring in from Cuyahoga Community College. Ruffin would go on to play at the University of Hawaii before playing two seasons in the NBA for the Phoenix Suns and Philadelphia 76ers.

Hess would leave after the 1991-92 season and Dave Babcock would take over, coaching the Matadors for four seasons and re-established the Matadors’ string of 20-win seasons, resulting in a return to the National Tournament in the 1992-93 season. Babcock later went on to enjoy a long career in the NBA as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks front office. After four seasons in charge, Babcock departed AWC and Jim Amick would return for one season as head coach.

The Matadors hired Kelly Green from the NCAA Division I University of Texas-Pan American in 1997.  Over the next 14 seasons, Green would make history at AWC, becoming the all-time winningest coach in program history, passing Amick. Green was able to build the Matadors program back up, making an appearance in the playoffs in 13 of his 14 seasons, playing in the Region I championship game 11 times, and winning the Region I title on five occasions. In his 14 seasons, Green led the Matadors to the NJCAA National Tournament three times. Green became the all-time winningest coach in program history on February 21^st, 2009 with his 293^rd career win.  In his time at Arizona Western, Green would recruit and coach Rafael Araujo who would play for the Matadors from 2000 to 2002 before moving on to BYU and eventually the NBA, playing for the Toronto Raptors and Utah Jazz. Green would leave AWC in 2011 to become the head coach at NCAA Division II Southeastern Oklahoma State University, leaving the program in the hands of his top assistant Charles Harral.

Harral would win 217 games in his time in Yuma, winning four Region I titles and a District I championship in 2018 to produce the program’s first National Tournament appearance since 2006. After Harral moved on to become an assistant coach at NCAA DI Lamar University. Kyle Isaacs spent 12 seasons as an assistant for both Green and Harrel before being named the head coach of the Matadors in April of 2021.

In his first season, Isaacs won 26 games, leading the Matadors to a 26-5 season which included a share of the ACCAC regular season title and an appearance in the Region I championship game. Isaacs was named the ACCAC Coach of the Year in the first season as a head coach. Isaacs oversaw the development of ACCAC Freshman of the Year and Player of the Year Yaxel Lendeborg.

The Matadors won their 21st Region I title in program history, finishing the season 26-7 and beating Cochise 73-62 in Douglas, Ariz., to earn a trip to the West District title game. Yaxel Lendeborg finished the season averaging 17.2 points per game and grabbing 13.0 rebounds per contest, earning NJCAA First-Team All-American honors while also earning ACCAC Defensive Player of the Year. Both Lendeborg and Marquis Hargrove were named All-ACCAC and All-Region as well.

In all five of his seasons as head coach, Arizona Western has won over 20 games each year under Isaacs. On November 13th, 2025, Kyle Isaacs collected his 100th win as head coach of Arizona Western in just over four seasons.