Gaston College basketball coach among the all-time winners as a head coach

For a coaching lifer like Gaston College athletic director and men's basketball coach David "Dickey" Nutt, coaching milestones come with the territory.

That's exactly why Nutt did little to celebrate the milestone he achieved earlier this year as he restarted the Gaston College program after 50 years.

Busy rebuilding a program that was a winner in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Nutt took the 300th head coaching victory of his career in the Rhinos' first week of competition.

Entering the season with 297 NCAA Division I head coaching wins, Nutt's first Gaston College team gave him No. 300 in dramatic fashion on Nov. 10 at Lowell's Gaston Christian School.

Trailing much of the game, the Rhinos forced overtime against Lincolnton's Combine Academy on freshman guard Dee Merriweather's 3-pointer with 16.9 seconds left in regulation then Da'marco Watson and Joshua Johnson hit driving layups and Merriweather had two clinching free throws with 2.0 seconds left in a 95-92 overtime victory.

It puts Nutt is select company in the National Junior College Athletic Association Region 10 that Gaston College currently competes in as only two other active coaches have surpassed 400 victories and only five other previous coaches racked up 300 or more in their careers.

The all-time Region 10 winner is Louisburg's NJCAA Hall of Famer Enid Drake, who had 697 wins from 1965 to 2006.

Nutt will enter the new year with 306 overall wins when the Rhinos return to action on Jan. 8 against GaddisWatts Prep Academy at the North Gaston High School gymnasium.

Here's a look at some of Nutt's to head coaching wins and/or games by school:

Arkansas State (1995-2008)

1. Then nicknamed "Indians," Arkansas State had never qualified for the NCAA tournament until the 1999 Sun Belt tournament. In Nutt's fourth season as head coach, the No. 2 seeded team won comfortably in all three games of the tournament behind MVP Chico Fletcher, capped by a 65-48 championship game victory at the Cajundome in Lafayette, La. Earlier in the tourney, Arkansas State knocked off New Orleans 70-53 and Florida International 89-67.

2. Arkansas State advances to the 2007 Sun Belt championship game - again held in Lafayette, La. - with an 80-73 tournament semifinal win over Western Kentucky.

3. In Nutt's second season as head coach in December 2006, he played against his college alma mater Oklahoma State - and knocked off the Cowboys 56-53 of Hall of Fame head coach Eddie Sutton on Arkansas State's homecourt.

4. In the 2001 Sun Belt tournament quarterfinals played at South Alabama, Arkansas State knocked off New Orleans 82-73.

5. A game-winning layup with 10 seconds left gave Arkansas State a 76-75 win over Western Kentucky on Jan. 25, 2007.

6. Trailing by eight with 90 seconds left, Arkansas State rallies to beat Louisiana Tech 92-88 on Feb. 2, 1998.

7. Arkansas State visits Mississippi in its 2003-04 season opener on Nov. 21, 2003 and comes away with a 64-59 road win over a SEC opponent.

8. Hosting perennial power Memphis State, Arkansas State gets a convincing 84-72 non-conference home victory.

9. In the 1997 finals of the Zippy's Classic in Honolulu, Arkansas State knocked off host Hawaii 86-82. Hawaii featured Anthony Carter, who went on to a 13-year NBA career as a point guard and is currently a Miami Heat assistant coach.

10. It wasn't a win but it remains the only NCAA tournament game in history for the Arkansas State program in an 80-58 to No. 2 seed Utah at the Louisiana Superdome on March 12, 1999.

Southeast Missouri State (2008-15)

1 and 2. An Ohio Valley Conference member since 1991, the Redhawks had never swept their road trip to perennial league powers Austin Peay and Murray State until the end of the 2012-13 season. Southeast Missouri State won 108-81 at Austin Peay on Feb. 28, 2013 while breaking an NCAA with 20 3-point conversions, then the Redhawks won 84-68 at Murray State two days later when the Racers' had future NBA player Isaiah Canaan.

3. To close out the 2013-14 regular season on March 1, 2014, the Redhawks outlasted a Murray State team with future NBA player Cameron Payne 118-115 in double overtime in front of a sold out arena.

4. Jerekious Bradley's jumpshot at the buzzer were the last two of four Redhawks' points in the final five seconds of a 55-54 home win over rival Southern Illinois.

Gaston College (2021)

1. In the Rhinos' first conference game in 50 years, Gaston College held off a late Cape Fear Community College rally to win 78-75 on the road against a Sea Devils' program that has won six of the previous 13 Region 10 championships.

2. Facing a Combine Academy team from Lincolnton that features six players receiving NCAA Division I recruiting attention, Gaston College overcomes an eight-point deficit with 8 1-2 minutes left to force overtime before the Rhinos won 95-92.

3. In Gaston College's first athletic contest in 50 years, the Rhinos trailed in both halves at Charlotte's Johnso & Wales University before rallying to a 79-72 victory.

When Nutt left Arkansas State, his 103 Sun Belt Conference wins was second in league history behind the legendary Gene Bartow of UAB and he remains in the top five of all-time in league history; Current Ole Miss head coach Kermit Davis is the all-time in SBC wins with 117 from when he coached at Middle Tennessee.

Nutt also has spent time as an assistant coach at Oklahoma State, Arkansas State, Florida State, Stetson and Cleveland State. And those teams have advanced to the NCAA tournament four times and the NIT four times, highlighted by Florida State's advanced to the Elite Eight under head coach and Gaston College alumnus Leonard Hamilton in 2018 and last spring's first NCAA appearance by Cleveland State since 2009.