Louisiana Tech hires Miami assistant coach Eric Konkol
Louisiana Tech hired Miami assistant Eric Konkol as the school’s next head basketball coach, the school announced Monday.
Konkol replaces Michael White, who left to take the head coaching job at Florida on May 7. White replaced Billy Donovan, who agreed to coach the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder.
Oklahoma assistant Steve Henson, Baylor assistant Jerome Tang and North Florida's Matt Driscoll were also considered for the job, according to CBSSports.com’s Gary Parrish.
"I could not be more excited to be the men's basketball coach at Louisiana Tech University," Konkol said. "A standard of excellence is growing here at Louisiana Tech. It is a direct result of the collective commitment by past and current administrators, coaches and players. Our goal is to keep pushing forward and continue to challenge for Conference USA championships and trips to the NCAA Tournament."
Power Rankings: North Carolina No. 1 ahead of Kentucky, Kansas, Maryland
Konkol, who was a candidate for the Green Bay head coaching job, had spent the last four seasons at Miami under coach Jim Larranaga. He also worked for Larranaga during the 2002-05 and 2007-11 seasons while they were at George Mason.
Louisiana Tech has won at least 27 games in each of the last three seasons and has won Conference USA’s regular season title two years in a row. But the program has failed to make the NCAA tournament after losing in the WAC (2013) and C-USA conference tournaments.
Louisiana Tech went 27-9 (15-3 Conference USA) last season and lost in the NIT quarterfinals to Temple.
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The Bulldogs’ last NCAA tournament appearance was in 1991.
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