Over two decades after wrapping up his storied career donning the brown and gold, Lubos Barton is impacting a new generation of Valpo men’s basketball student-athletes as the former professional basketball standout returned to his alma mater as Recruiting & Player Development Coach prior to the 2023-24 season.
In Barton’s first two seasons in Northwest Indiana, the Valpo coaching staff recruited and developed back-to-back Missouri Valley Conference Freshmen of the Year, marking just the third time that the same team won that award in consecutive seasons since the honor began in 1986. In his second season on staff, Barton helped Valpo over double its win total from the previous year as the Beacons recorded 15 victories in 2024-25, the team’s highest output since 2019-20. Valpo picked up numerous breakthrough triumphs in Barton’s second season on staff en route to an MVC Tournament semifinal appearance. The team won a season series against Missouri State for the first time in 16 seasons of shared conference affiliation, defeated UNI in back-to-back matchups for the first time in 40 all-time meetings and beat Belmont for the first time since the Bruins joined the Missouri Valley Conference thanks to a 101-point output, Valpo’s highest in league play since 1998.
After retiring from his professional playing career, Barton stayed in the game of basketball as he began coaching in 2016. He started in Spain and soon joined the coaching staff for the Czech Republic national team. He has coached FC Barcelona junior teams and was the head coach of the Czech Republic Under 18 team for four years. In Summer 2022, he was also an assistant coach for the Czech Republic senior national team. In 2023, he went to China for the University games with the U23 team. Other stops during his journey include EuroproBasket Girona, Basketball Brno – Next Generation and ACB in Spain.
In 2019, he accepted a position on the coaching staff at Baylor, and was part of head coach Scott Drew’s staff in early 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic put his NCAA coaching desires on pause. Three years later, another NCAA opportunity has led Barton back to the United States, this time at a very familiar institution.
Barton, part of the Valpo Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2017, was a standout on the court from 1998-2002, leading the team to three Mid-Continent Conference regular season titles, three conference tournament championships and three NCAA Tournament appearances. He was named the Mid-Continent Conference Player of the Year as a senior in 2002 while also earning Honorable Mention All-American honors from the Associated Press. The conference’s Newcomer of the Year in 1999 as a freshman, Barton earned all-conference accolades in each of his four seasons – including first team honors twice – and was the conference’s Tournament MVP as a sophomore in 2000.
Barton’s name still appears throughout the Valpo program record book, as he ranks fifth in program history in career points (1,675), seventh in rebounds (753), tied for seventh in assists (360), fourth in 3-pointers (244), 10th in made field goals (566), 10th in blocked shots (74) and owns the program record for career steals with 190. His 63 steals in 2001-02 stood for nearly two decades as the single-season program record and now rank second in single-season program history.
Barton’s professional playing career featured time with top-class European teams such as Fortiduo Bologna, Virtus Roma, Joventut Badalona and Barcelona. He is a FibaCup champion, Spanish Cup Champion, Spanish league ACB Champion, Eurocup Champion and Euroleague Champion.
