Former Clemson assistant coach hired by SE Missouri St. |
Former Mississippi State coach Rick Ray was announced as the Southeast Missouri State men's basketball coach at a press conference Monday evening at the Show Me Center.
Ray was fired as the Bulldogs' coach on March 21 after going 37-60 overall and 13-41 in the Southeastern Conference in his three seasons at the helm. Ray was an assistant at Clemson the two seasons prior to that. He was an assistant at Purdue from 2006-10. During that stretch the Boilermakers reached the Sweet 16 twice and claimed the Big 10 tournament championship in 2009. He also was an assistant at Indiana State from 1997-2004 and Northern Illinois from 2004-06. Ray, from Kansas City, Kansas, began his collegiate career at Labette Community College in Parsons, Kansas, and ended at Grand View College in Des Moines, Iowa. Virginia Tech assistant Isaac Chew and Michigan State assistant Dwayne Stephens were also finalists for the job. Ray replaced Dickey Nutt, who had served as the Redhawks coach for the past six seasons. Nutt was fired on March 23 after Southeast went 13-17 and 7-9 in the Ohio Valley Conference. The Redhawks reached the conference tournament for the fifth consecutive season but were bounced in the first round as the eighth seed. Southeast never made it past the quarterfinal round of the tournament under Nutt, who concluded his six-year stint with a record of 80-108 and 41-59 in the OVC. The Redhawks had two winning seasons under Nutt, going 17-16 in 2012-13 and 18-14 in 2013-14.
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