Chattanooga is expected to hire VMI‘s Dan Earl as its men’s basketball coach, sources told ESPN.
An official announcement is expected later this week.
Earl has been the coach at VMI — considered one of the toughest jobs in America — for the past seven seasons. He led the Keydets to back-to-back .500 finishes in the Southern Conference in 2021 and 2022, only the second time the program has done that since 2000. After guiding VMI to its first .500 finish in seven years in 2021, Earl was named the SoCon Coach of the Year.
A former All-Big Ten point guard at Penn State, Earl began his coaching career in 2006 with the Nittany Lions under Ed DeChellis. When DeChellis left for Navy in 2011, Earl followed and became the program’s associate head coach.
At Chattanooga, Earl would replace Lamont Paris, who left earlier this month to become the new head coach at South Carolina. Paris guided the Mocs to the SoCon regular-season and conference tournament titles this season, advancing to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2016.