TCU set to hire Kent State's Christian as basketball coach
FORT WORTH, Texas(AP) TCU is set to hire Kent State's Jim Christian as its basketball coach.
A person with direct knowledge of the situation confirmed late Friday night that TCU had reached an agreement with Christian. That person spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement hadn't been made.
Christian is expected to be introduced during a news conference on the TCU campus Saturday afternoon.
Christian was 138-58 at Kent State the past six seasons. The Golden Flash won at least 20 games each of those seasons, including a 28-7 mark this season when they were knocked out of the NCAA tournament in the first round by UNLV - the same team that ended TCU's season.
Neil Dougherty was fired March 16, three days after TCU lost 89-88 to host UNLV in the Mountain West Conference tournament to end a 14-16 season. He had a year left on his contract.
Dougherty was 75-108 in his six seasons, with a winning record only once. After the Frogs went 21-14 and made it to the National Invitation Tournament in 2004-05, they slipped to 6-25 the following season.
At Kent State, Christian became the first Mid-American Conference coach to win 20 games in each of his first six seasons. But he didn't win a postseason game, losing in the first round of the NCAA tournament twice and the NIT three times.
After the Golden Flash went 25-9 with an NCAA appearance in 2005-06, Christian got a new seven-year contract through the 2012-13 season.
Before replacing Billy Tubbs in 2002 for his first head coaching job, Dougherty spent seven seasons as an assistant at Kansas for Roy Williams. Dougherty was also an assistant at South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Drake and Cameron.
The other known candidates for the TCU job were Oral Roberts coach Scott Sutton, Tennessee-Chattanooga coach John Shulman and Buzz Peterson, the director of player personnel for the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats.