Everhart will talk today to Penn State
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Duquesne head coach Ron Everhart has an 83-74 mark with the Dukes.
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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The Penn State men's basketball program has its sights set on another coach with Western Pennsylvania ties.
Duquesne's Ron Everhart will interview for the Nittany Lions' head coaching vacancy today, sources told the Post-Gazette Monday night.
Penn State athletic director Tim Curley is seeking a replacement for Ed DeChellis, a Monaca native who unexpectedly bolted the program last week to accept a similar position at Navy, where he took a considerable pay cut.
Everhart, 49, has led the Dukes to four winning seasons in five years, an 83-74 record and an appearance in the Atlantic 10 Conference championship game.
Duquesne went 19-13 this past season under Everhart and lost to DeChellis and the Lions, 77-73, in early December at Bryce Jordan Center.
Penn State finished 19-15 this past season and lost to Temple, 66-64, in the second round of the NCAA tournament in Tucson, Ariz.
Although he led his team to a National Invitation Tournament title in 2009, DeChellis compiled an overall record of 117-139 in eight seasons, including a 41-95 mark in Big Ten Conference play.
In 17 years as a head coach, Everhart has a 257-239 record in stops at McNeese State, Northeastern and Duquesne, where he turned around a Dukes program that was coming off a 3-24 record a year before his arrival in 2006.
Also, prior to the start of practice in his initial season, Everhart had to deal with an incident in which five Duquesne players were shot by two non-students after an argument at the student union on campus.
Everhart, a native of Fairmont, W.Va., played college basketball at Virginia Tech.
Since DeChellis' sudden departure eight days ago, Penn State has been scrambling to find a replacement.
Curley initially reached out to Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown about the Penn State vacancy. But in the end, Curley told Brown he was looking for a candidate with more recent college head coaching experience.
Brown, 70, is the only coach to win both an NBA and NCAA championship. He previously coached in college in 1988, leading Kansas to the NCAA title. He guided the Detroit Pistons to the NBA crown in 2004.
East Carolina coach Jeff Lebo, a Carlisle native, and Drexel's James "Bruiser" Flint also have withdrawn their names from consideration for the job.
Other names being tossed around for the opening include Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Rob Jeter, a Pittsburgh native; Boston's Pat Chambers, Tulsa's Doug Wojcik, former Bucknell coach Pat Flannery, Syracuse assistant Mike Hopkins and Arizona State assistant Scott Pera.
First Published May 31, 2011 7:29 am
