Kent hires Bennie Seltzer as assistant coach

The results on the court haven’t been outstanding for Ernie Kent the last couple of seasons.

His results in hiring assistant coaches this offseason, though, have been pretty darn fantastic! Washington State announced today that Kent has hired former Coug Bennie Seltzer to fill the final assistant coaching void.

"I'm very excited to announce Bennie Seltzer as our newest assistant coach at Washington State University," Kent said in a WSU media release. "Bennie was an outstanding player at Washington State and I think he'll add a lot to our staff and to our basketball program. Anytime you can bring back a successful product of your university, it speaks volumes of how we prepare our student-athletes for success."

Lets start with Seltzer’s more relevant resume, the one he built up coaching because it’s quite impressive. Seltzer started his career at Oklahoma, working for former WSU coach Kelvin Sampson for nine seasons, a span that saw the Sooners go to the NCAA Tournament eight times.

At the end of his tenure with the Sooners, Seltzer would spend the next six seasons coaching at Marquette and Indiana with Tom Crean. While he was in Bloomington, Seltzer was responsible for recruiting some names like Victor Oladipo, Christian Watford, and Will Sheehey.

After that, Seltzer would head to Birmingham to take the reigns of his home town Samford in 2012. He would last just two seasons, and had a hard time getting players to stick around, though he did coach Tim Williams to Freshman of the Year honors and an All SoCon First Team pick.

Seltzer had a cup of coffee in Bloomington again before being hired on as an assistant Loyola Chicago, a team that beat WSU last season.

"My family and I are extremely excited to be a part of the Cougar Basketball program once again," Seltzer said in the media release. "It has always been my dream to coach at my alma mater. Having the opportunity to do just that under the leadership of Ernie Kent excites me even more. We are truly grateful and want to thank Coach Kent, his staff, Bill Moos and the entire Cougar Basketball family for this amazing opportunity. Go Cougs!"

Seltzer’s resume from his playing days is quite a good one. He’s still the all-time leader in career assists with 473 and, at the time of his graduation, was second in scoring with 1,423 points which now sits ninth. He’s also a member of the Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Hall of Honor.

Seltzer’s pedigree as an assistant is excellent and the players he managed to recruit to Indiana should encourage you. Combined with Kent’s hire of Garfield High School head coach Ed Haskins, he’s legitimately knocked it out of the park this offseason; both hires are excellent and should be encouraging for the direction of the program.