New Mexico, Eric Olen announce assistant basketball coaches

New Mexico head coach Eric Olen has begun putting together his staff at New Mexico

UC San Diego Tritons head coach Eric Olen. | Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

On Saturday, New Mexico named Eric Olen as head coach of the Lobos’ basketball program. Olen began coaching at UC San Diego in 2004, spending the past 12 seasons as the Tritons’ head coach. He led UC San Diego to the NCAA tournament this season in their first year eligible for the big dance.

Less than a week later, Olen has announced the hiring of three assistant coaches to his staff. Tom Tankelewicz, Sam Stapleton and Mikey Howell have joined the program at New Mexico following Olen from his staff at UC San Diego.

Tankelewicz has been on Olen’s staff for the past three seasons after coming to San Diego following stops at Presbyterian and UNC Greensboro. Stapelton spent four seasons at UC San Diego including each of the past two as an assistant coach. Howell played four seasons at UC San Diego, becoming the school’s all-time leader in assists before playing a graduate year at Bradley. Howell then returned to the Tritons, serving on Olen’s staff for each of the past three seasons.

With the college basketball transfer portal open and recruiting moving as fast at it ever has, Olen and staff will now get to work to piece together a roster for a program that has reached the NCAA tournament in consecutive years after a nine-year drought. Olen and staff got their first recruit on Thursday night, adding Carlsbad High guard Jake Hall to the mix.

Hall, the second all-time leading scorer in San Diego Section basketball history had previously committed to play for Olen at UC San Diego, signing with the Tritons in the fall. He was released from his national letter of intent earlier this week and will now play in Albuquerque. Hall was the San Diego Section Player of the Year as a junior, averaged 29 points, seven rebounds and four assists per game this past year and ended his four-year career with 3,106 points.

Following the season, New Mexico was hit hard in the transfer portal with Mountain West Conference Player of the Year Donovan Dent leading a group of Lobos who have exited the program early. Dent, who has since committed to UCLA, was joined by Tru Washington, Braden Appelhans, Filip Borovicanin, Quinton Webb, Jovan Milicevic, Daniel Thomas and Kayde Dotson. Appelhans has since committed to Drake while Borovicanin will follow his former head coach, Richard Pitino, to Xavier.