ALBUQUERQUE N.M.
Louisville assistant men’s basketball coach Marvin Menzies will take over as head coach at New Mexico State.
NMSU president Michael Martin said Thursday that Menzies, an assistant for the past two years under Rick Pitino, will be introduced on Friday in Las Cruces. The school has scheduled a 3 p.m. news conference.
The hiring was first reported by the Las Cruces Sun-News.
Before going to Louisville, Menzies spent a year under former Atlanta Hawks coach Lon Kruger at UNLV, one year as an assistant at USC and four seasons at San Diego State. His only head coaching experience was at Santa Monica College from 1994-95.
He takes over for Reggie Theus, another former Pitino assistant, who turned around the Aggies during a historic two-year run. New Mexico State finished 25-9 last season, capping the NCAA’s biggest turnaround in the past two seasons by winning the WAC tournament and playing in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1999.
Theus was hired to replace Eric Musselman as the head coach of the Sacramento Kings earlier this month. Theus spent 13 years as a player in the NBA.
Martin told The Associated Press he was “fully content and confident that the Aggies had landed the best man for the job.”
Menzies, 45, was selected from a pool of candidates that included New Mexico State assistants Damon Archibald and Chris Pompey, and former Arizona State coach and New Mexico State alum Rob Evans.
“We had a wonderful group of candidates and any one of them would have been a great choice,” Martin said.
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