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Jeff Borzello
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Jeff Borzello
ESPN Staff Writer
- Basketball recruiting insider.
- Joined ESPN in 2014.
- Graduate of University of Delaware.
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Pete Thamel
Western Kentucky is expected to hire Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s Steve Lutz as its next head coach, sources told ESPN on Saturday.
Lutz is coming off back-to-back men’s NCAA tournament appearances with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, guiding the Islanders to a Southland regular-season title this season. They beat Southeast Missouri State in the First Four earlier this week before falling to Alabama 96-75 in the first round on Thursday.
In two seasons at Corpus Christi, Lutz is 47-23 overall and 21-11 in conference play.
Prior to being hired as its head coach, Lutz was a longtime assistant coach at different levels of college basketball, most notably seven seasons at Creighton under Greg McDermott and four seasons at Purdue under Matt Painter. During his time with the Boilermakers, Lutz helped recruit Wooden Award front-runner Zach Edey to West Lafayette.
Lutz began his coaching career as an assistant coach at Incarnate Word in 1995.
At Western Kentucky, he replaces Rick Stansbury, who left his post earlier this month after seven seasons with the Hilltoppers. They failed to reach the NCAA tournament in any of his seven seasons. Prior to Stansbury’s tenure, Western Kentucky had strong recent NCAA tournament history, going seven times under three different coaches from 2001 to 2013 — including a Sweet 16 appearance in 2008 under Darrin Horn.