Kent State Moves Assistant Senderoff Into Head Position

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Rob Senderoff, 37, was officially named Kent State's next head basketball coach on Wednesday, with a formal press conference set for 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

This ends a 10-day search by Kent athletic director Joel Nielsen to find a replacement for former head man Geno Ford, who departed after three seasons for Bradley University.

Senderoff's hiring continues a recent KSU tradition of hiring from within. The program has won 20 or more games 12 out of the last 13 seasons while advancing to either the NCAA Tournament or the NIT Tournament 11 times. By retaining the popular Senderoff, the Golden Flashes can look for little staff or player turnover from a team that had just one senior in a 25-12 season.

Kent won the regular-season Mid-American Conference title, advanced to the title game of the MAC Tournament before losing to rival Akron, then advanced to the quarterfinals of the NIT.

Senderoff's rise to head coach began as an assistant at Miami (Ohio) in 1995, with stops at Fordham, Yale, Towson State, Kent, Indiana and back to Kent in 2008 as associate head coach to Ford. His two-year stay at Indiana was the most turbulent, as he was penalized 36 months with recruiting restrictions by the NCAA as part of the Kelvin Sampson regime at Indiana. That blemish comes off the NCAA books on May 25.