Thursday Headlines: Rod Strickland Edition

Strickland will take over as the head coach at LIU Brooklyn

By Zac Oakes@ZacOakes Jun 30, 2022, 6:40am EDT

Rod Strickland is back in the college game, landing his first head coaching job.

The former Kentucky assistant is leaving his role as the NBA G-League Ignite’s program manager to take over as the head coach at LIU Brooklyn, which fired former coach Derek Kellogg.

Kellogg wasn’t awful at LIU Brooklyn, as the Sharks never finished worse than .500 in league play during Kellogg’s five seasons, going 74-74 (49-41 NEC) during his tenure and reaching the NCAA Tournament in 2018.

There are some questions now about the future of Brad Calipari, who joined the LIU staff earlier this year. Kellogg has long been connected with John Calipari, playing under Coach Cal at UMass and coached with him at Memphis.

Maybe Strickland will keep Brad on, but new coaches often like to bring in their own people to fill out the coaching staff, so this will be something to keep an eye on.

More importantly, you have to wonder if this will hurt the G-League Ignite’s reach on college prospects. Strickland has been a big part of the program, so one has to wonder if this could help Kentucky’s recruiting efforts.

Tweet of the Day

Rob Dillingham’s game is too smooth

The Kentucky commit was getting to it on Day Two of the NBPA Top 100 Camp. @Top100Camp @TheNBPA @robwitdashifts #NBPATOP100CAMP pic.twitter.com/xaHgGi5d6k
— SLAM HS Hoops (@SLAM_HS) June 29, 2022