Nebraska Basketball: Losing assistant coach Kenya Hunter has Tim Miles scrambling
By Bryan Mauro
Nebraska Basketball has a bright future for next season. They will, however, have to do it without a key assistant coach.
As the 2017-2018 season finished, Tim Miles and the Nebraska Cornhuskers basketball team experienced many firsts. Some of those firsts were this Tim Miles team being the first ever win 13 Big Ten conference games in a season. Coach Miles and his coaching staff also got their first win over the National Runner-Up in the Michigan Wolverines. The win over Michigan was the largest margin of defeat the Wolverines experienced all year, up until the National Championship game.
One of the men on the sidelines, who should get some extra credit for this magical season would be assistant coach Kenya Hunter. When Tim Miles took the job at Nebraska, it took him a year to get his feet wet, but once he was established he decided to hire Hunter in year two. Initially, Hunter was responsible for coaching the post players and focused on the player development side of the game.
His role would change as other coaches left Nebraska to go onto better jobs. Soon Hunter would be responsible for the scouting of the opponent and help develop a game plan to beat some of the top opponents in the Big Ten. Hunter was responsible for the scout and game plan of the Wolverines when the Huskers beat them in the regular season.
Hunter’s impact
Hunter was also the lead recruiter on most of Nebraska’s stars. He was able to land James Palmer Jr., Isaac Copeland, Jordy Tshimanga and Thomas Allen on this previous years team. In the past, he was responsible for Terran Petteway. Under the tutelage of Hunter, Petteway and Palmer were able to play their way into all-conference players. Hunter had a huge impact on the way Nebraska plays, as well as the current roster in Lincoln.
Coach Miles has now lost six of his assistant coaches in his tenure at Nebraska. Those six are Craig Smith, Chris Harriman, Ali Farokmanesh, Phil Beckner and Kenya Hunter. Every one of these coaches left to get a promotion. Smith is now the coach of Utah State, after building the South Dakota program up.
Harriman left Nebraska to become the Associate Head Coach at New Mexico. Beckner left Nebraska after a year to go and coach at Boise State. The fit was never right in Lincoln for coach Beckner. Farokmanesh left Nebraska after one year as the SID, to go and join another former Miles assistant Niko Medved at Drake and now at Colorado State. Hunter is the latest to leave and he is headed to join Dan Hurley in Storrs, as a member of the UConn coaching staff.
Void in the coaching staff
Miles has been able to replace all of his assistants who have left with other experienced and highly touted assistant coaches. He currently has a staff that consists of Jim Molinari and Michael Lewis. Coach Miles will approach the new assistant hire, the same way he has approached them all. He will look for a strategic approach to find someone who fits into the puzzle to make one cohesive piece. He will need to make sure the new coach checks off some much-needed boxes.
The new assistant will need to be a dynamic recruiter who will be able to convince some of the top talents to come to Nebraska. This person will also need to be able to coach the wings and help with the further development of the most talented group of individuals on this roster.
While Miles may be able to find a recruiter and player developer, will he be able to find someone who knows the X’s and O’s and understands the opponents as much as Hunter did? It remains to be seen who Miles targets for this vacancy, but he will be qualified.
Why leave?
With all the talent returning and the potential to make history in Lincoln, why did Hunter leave? Hunter left for a few reasons. One of the main reasons he left is that Hunter wants to run his own program, and he believes this move to UConn will help him achieve that goal.
The other reason is that Hunter believed, either true or not, that he accomplished all he could accomplish at Nebraska, and his heart was not all the way in that job anymore. He had been at Nebraska for 5 years and provided the fans many lasting memories.
Hunter is going to succeed in his new job. It will be much easier to recruit the top talent at UConn. It also appears to be less of a challenge to reach the top. Dan Hurley is a very good coach who just took a Rhode Island team to two straight NCAA tournaments. Hunter should share the same role for Coach Hurley as he shared with Coach Miles.
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As Coach Hunter starts a new job next year, it will be interesting times for Nebraska as they start a new era, with a talented team with tons of expectations without the man who helped build the team.