Houston Fancher is an American basketball coach, previously the interim head coach of the Charlotte 49ers men's basketball team. Prior to that, he worked for a summer in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Later, he also worked for four years at the University of Tennessee, including as the Director of Basketball Operations for the last two of those years. From 2000 to 2009, he was the men's head basketball coach of the Mountaineers at Appalachian State University. His first two seasons saw his team go 11–20, and 10–18, respectively. The following season, 2002–03, his team went 19–10, and Fancher was named the Southern Conference Coach of the Year. In the 2006–07 season, his squad won a school record 25 games, but failed to make the NCAA tournament, instead garnering Appalachian's first National Invitation Tournament (NIT) berth instead. On March 16, 2009, Fancher resigned as head coach following a disappointing 2008–09 season.

The Charlotte 49ers men's basketball team represents the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in NCAA Division I basketball. Charlotte is a member of the American Athletic Conference, which they joined in 2023 after 10 seasons in Conference USA. Charlotte, which had been a charter C-USA member from 1995, returned to that conference in 2013 after leaving in 2005 to join the Atlantic 10 Conference. The 49ers have also played in the Sun Belt Conference and were a member of the Metro Conference, which merged with the Great Midwest Conference to form Conference USA.