
Basketball season at the University of Memphis is wrapping up, which means that the coaches are moving onto prepping for the next season. Recruiting players is one thing, but there are other duties when it comes to being a head coach for a Division I basketball program.
Coach Josh Pastner of the Memphis Tigers is currently focused on the team’s structure for next season but will have to also focus on hiring a new assistant coach to his blemished coaching staff.
Hiring a new assistant coach is an old tune for Pastner as he has had to replace assistants for the past three seasons.

Stoudamire was hired in 2011 with former NBA player Luke Walton to replace Willis Wilson and Glynn Cyprien. Before Stoudamire left Memphis, Jimmy Williams resigned as the coach to pursue other opportunities.

A prime example would be assistant coach Jason Gardner, who has decided to take the head coaching job at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Gardner was brought in alongside Robert Kirby prior to the beginning of the 2013-14 basketball season.
Before Gardner came to Memphis, he was an assistant at Loyola University Chicago from 2011-13. He will replace Todd Howard, who went 26-70 in three seasons as the head coach.
Before Gardner’s career as a coach began, he was a star basketball player at North Central High School in Indianapolis, Ind., in the late 1990s and in Arizona from 1999-2003.
During a press conference, Pastner talked about the possibility of losing an assistant coach.
“I got great assistant coaches. I love my guys. I never want to hold anybody back,” Pastner said. “They obviously want to be head coaches so I would always fight for them to be a head coach. So obviously if they have an opportunity to be a head coach somewhere, then obviously they will take the opportunity.”
This will be the fourth straight season that Pastner will have to replace an assistant.