Former UW Assistant T.J. Otzelberger Hired as Iowa State Coach

University of Washington assistant basketball coaches, past and present, keep coming and going.

A day after Cameron Dollar left the school, former Huskies assistant T.J. Otzelberger was named head coach at Iowa State, on Thursday moving from UNLV to the Cyclones.

Otzelberger coached on Lorenzo Romar's Husky staff for two seasons, leaving at the end of the 2014-15 campaign. He was hired after seven seasons at Iowa State and returned to the same school as an assistant for one more. Considered a top-notch recruiter, he was part of 17-15 and 16-15 UW teams.

For the good part of a decade, the Milwaukee native has been singled out as a coach on the rise. While at the UW, he was rated as one of the top 10 assistant coaches in the country by NBC Sports and as one of the top 10 head coaches in waiting by ESPN's Jay Bilas.

Otzelberger, 43, became a head coach for the first time at South Dakota State, taking that school to a pair of NCAA tournament berths and an NIT appearance in his three seasons in 2017-2019. His second team finished 28-7.

UW players thought so highly of him guard Michael Carter, a member of Mike Hopkins' first recruiting class, transferred after the 2016-17 season and followed Otzelberger to South Dakota State.

Carter, however, never played for the Jackrabbits. He ended up at Long Beach State, where he spent two seasons and was a double-figure scorer each time, though he recently was dismissed from the team.

Otzelberger spent the past two seasons at UNLV, where he was 17-15 and 12-15, likely changing schools at just the right time.

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