Pineville High School has a fresh face at the helm for the upcoming basketball season. The school announced Brad Levy as the new high school boys basketball coach on Thursday afternoon.

Levy has nine years of coaching experience, including time at Scott County Middle School, Scott County High School and Franklin County High School.

At Scott Middle, Levy served as the 6th-grade boys head coach as well as a program assistant. In his time at Franklin County High School, Levy served as junior varsity and freshman team coach.

While at Scott County High School, Levy was an assistant coach for both junior varsity and varsity and helped lead the Cardinals to the Sweet 16 in 2012 and 2014.

“This place just seemed like a great fit for me and my wife,” said Levy. “I’m excited to get to work here. This administration has been extremely proactive in building the sports programs here in Pineville, and I think we’re headed in the right direction.

“I’m not going to come in here and promise championships from day one. We are going to work as hard as we can to get there, but we have to work on getting better first. Skill development is my main focus here. We are going to make the individual player better, which will make the team better. I’m very excited about what I have seen so far. There are some talented kids here.”

Levy said he was looking for the right opportunity to open up during his search for a head coaching position.

“I was looking for a good opportunity to come open,” said Levy. “Once I saw the opening, it just felt right. I’ve had limited interaction with both the administration and the athletes themselves, but what interaction I have had, there is a general feel of excitement around here on all fronts.

“We will always focus on academics first, then sports. We are going to play extremely hard every single night, every single possession. We are going to be extremely aggressive on both ends of the floor. If we play hard for 32 minutes, that means we’ve done everything we can and we will let the chips fall where they may.”

J.D. Strange stepped down as the head basketball coach last season after the better part of two decades. The vacancy was then filled by his son, James Strange, on an interim basis. The Mountain Lions finished the year 10-19.