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    Kenya Hunter Hired as New Nebrasketball Assistant

      Miles reels in Georgetown assistant

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      • Was longest tenured Georgetown assistant
      • Brings an east coast recruiting footprint
      • Helped to develop big men Roy Hibbert, Greg Monroe, and Otto Porter




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    G'town appears to have a lot of assistant coaching turnover at the moment.  Hmmmm.  Wonder what's going on there.

    Hunter's the only departure that doesn't make sense, though.  The other two are upgrades from their current positions.  I think Hunter got a decent raise in coming here, too...

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    I agree with everyone here. This looks like a great hire. I'm interested to know what his motivation was for leaving a place like Georgetown for Lincoln. I'm assuming we offered more money, combined with a far lower cost of living vs. the DC metro, but I'd love to know his rationale. This seems like a real coup.

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    Norm, i thinks its just a case, of he wants to move on, maybe become a head coach, and that wasnt gonna ever happen at Gtown, maybe here he see's the potential to piggyback off Miles success, and go somewhere, or if it happends and miles leaves, possibly coach here, idk....all i know is considering my love for both programs, and seeing first hand how good the last five years have been for GTOWN...im pretty happy...estactic....delrious

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    Yes, Nebraska is now taking assistants from Georgetown

    Gary Parrish of CBS Sports

     

    Turns out, Otto Porter wasn't the only person to leave Georgetown this offseason.

     

    The majority of John Thompson III's staff is gone, too.

     

    Nebraska coach Tim Miles announced Monday that he's hired Kenya Hunter away from Georgetown, making him the third assistant coach to leave the Big East school since the Hoyas lost to Florida Gulf Coast in the Round of 64 of the NCAA tournament. Former assistant Mike Brennan is now the head coach at American; he took former Georgetown director of basketball operations Scott Greenman with him.

     

    JT3 hired Northwestern's Tavaras Hardy and George Washington's Kevin Sutton to replace Brennan and Hunter as full-time assistants. The DOBO job remains open.

     

    So what does all this turnover mean?

     

    The moves by Brennan and Greenman make sense, honestly, because both are now in obviously better positions -- Brennan as a first-time head coach, Greenman as a first-time assistant. But the Hunter-to-Nebraska development is wild, mostly because it means Nebraska just poached an assistant from Georgetown. And while it would be easy to question how Georgetown could let that happen, I think a better use of this space would be to highlight exactly what's going on in Lincoln.

     

    Simply put, this is not your grandfather's Nebraska.

     

    Or your father's Nebraska.

     

    Or even your older brother's Nebraska.

     

    The Big Ten school opened a new $20 million basketball practice facility in October 2011, will open a new $179 million basketball arena this season, and is paying second-year coach Tim Miles a salary that'll eventually exceed $2 million annually, which brings me to Hunter and his salary. A source told CBSSports.com that it'll be $230,000 a year, and that all three Huskers assistants now make at least $200,000 a year. So while Nebraska is still quite obviously a "football" school, the administration has made it clear it thinks there's no reason basketball can't operate at a high level, too.

     

    Will it?

     

    We'll see.

     

    But the school is undeniably investing properly.

     

    And that's almost always the first step toward something great.

     

    http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketball/22385197/yes-nebraska-is-now-taking-assistants-from-georgetown

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    I'm sure it certainly helps to know you have a sold out arena to be able to justify increasing the salary budget for assistant coaches.  The athletic deparment is probably getting an incremental $500-750K in revenue from increased ticket sales, not factoring in what they'll get for suite leases and concessions.  Reinvesting it back into the program makes a lot of sense at this point.

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    Ron Bailey of HoyaReport.com said not only will Hunter give the Huskers immediate in-roads to top prospects across the country, but also another talented basketball mind to add to their bench.

    "While at Georgetown, Hunter proved himself as a good bench coach, one that seemingly related well with players," Bailey said. "It was common for him to be a calming, stabilizing influence during games, one that dispensed corrective advice as well.

    "In terms of recruiting, it's pretty clear Hunter is a rising star, as he has broadened his footprint in that regard. The Huskers can expect to be involved with kids from across the nation via Hunter, with a focus on the District-Maryland-Virginia region, North Carolina and Virginia proper, as well as points north of the DMV.

    "He's also a person that can communicate with people of various walks of life."

     

    http://nebraska.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1514132

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    I agree with everyone here. This looks like a great hire. I'm interested to know what his motivation was for leaving a place like Georgetown for Lincoln. I'm assuming we offered more money, combined with a far lower cost of living vs. the DC metro, but I'd love to know his rationale. This seems like a real coup.

    Also, I think when JT3 didn't move him into the top assistant spot, I'm sure that had some role in him listening to Miles offer when it came.

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    Ron Bailey of HoyaReport.com said not only will Hunter give the Huskers immediate in-roads to top prospects across the country, but also another talented basketball mind to add to their bench.

    "While at Georgetown, Hunter proved himself as a good bench coach, one that seemingly related well with players," Bailey said. "It was common for him to be a calming, stabilizing influence during games, one that dispensed corrective advice as well.

    "In terms of recruiting, it's pretty clear Hunter is a rising star, as he has broadened his footprint in that regard. The Huskers can expect to be involved with kids from across the nation via Hunter, with a focus on the District-Maryland-Virginia region, North Carolina and Virginia proper, as well as points north of the DMV.

    "He's also a person that can communicate with people of various walks of life."

     

    http://nebraska.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1514132

     

     

    Wow, it really paid off for Miles to just wait until the best hire was available.  Our coach never ceases to amaze me.

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    im just really impressed with our staff as a whole for recruiting purposes. first you have miles who has a good eye for developing talent. than we have the Craig Smith who gives us a big ten imprint, Harriman gives us those international diamonds in the rough you need, to string together program, now Hunter gives us the well...the players we need to compete for NCAA tourney games, and eventually higher goals. Hopefully we can attack the MD/NY/PITT pipeline and steal a few.

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    This has me really excited. We have three assistants with salaries totaling a minimum of $630K. What did Doc get paid? And what did Doc pay his assistants? With Miles making close to 2 mil and his assistants all over 200k things have certainly changed around here. And that may be a huge understatement.

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    FWIW, I have heard a couple of analysts say that a hire like this, this late in the game, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for a transfer to come with him...Not a big name guy or anything, but a guy that was highly ranked coming out of high school, but has kind've gotten lost in the crowd at a place like Georgetown that gets alot of studs on an annual basis.  A guy that doesn't see alot of playing time and would transfer to get on the court and be "the guy" at a place where he can crack the lineup.

     

    I literally have zero inside info about this or anything.  That is just what some analysts have speculated when talking about the hire. 

     

    Anyone have any knowledge of the Georgetown roster situation and know of any post players that would fit this description?

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    Well, I would think what this might mean in terms of recruiting is that guys that Hunter had established a relationship while at G'town now might put Nebraska on their list just like Illikainen seemed to have transfered his interest in us to follow that other guy who assisted us for, like, a season (what was his name?).

     

    Which is all the more reason I feel mystified by our current visitors.  We've just hired a guy who should be guns on the recruiting trail especially along the eastern seaboard where the B1G is increasing its footprint.  Why not give him a month to see what he can do before we start extending scatch-your-head offers.

     

    I was honestly hoping we'd be able to land players at or above Nick Fuller's level with the 2 spots for '14.  The doors haven't completely closed on a couple of bigger names.  And November is still a long ways off.  Let's see what Kenya can do when he gets to Lincoln.  Give him a chance to recrtuit, baby.

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