Hicks vs. his assistant

[statefan]

According to today's Gazette, Scott Hicks is one of two finalists for the head coaching job at Hamilton. The other finalist is Bill Geitner, who was one of Hicks' assistants here and at Loyola before taking the head coaching job at Eastern Connecticut State College. Geitner is a Hamilton alum.

[Dane Pound]

There must have been three finalists. Hamilton announced yesterday it hired former Cornell Coach Tobin Anderson. Anderson was also an assistant and Lemoyne.

 

New Men's Basketball Coach Hired

Hamilton Taps Clarkson's Anderson

Contact: James Taylor (jtaylor)

Phone: (315) 859-4685

April 26, 2004

 

Tobin Anderson, head men’s basketball coach at Clarkson University for the past five seasons, has been named the new head men’s basketball coach at Hamilton College. Anderson becomes the eighth person to lead Hamilton’s program in its 84-year history and just the third since 1951.

 

Anderson’s Clarkson teams won 67 games in five seasons, including a 16-12 record in 2003-04. Clarkson competes against Hamilton in the Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association in men’s and women’s basketball. Anderson coached the Golden Knights to a tie for the regular season conference title, the UCAA semifinals, and the Eastern College Athletic Conference Upstate New York Region tournament semifinals.

 

“We are excited to have Tobin Anderson join the Hamilton College athletic department staff,” director of athletics Dave Thompson said. “He has developed Clarkson into one of the best programs in the Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association in a short period of time. We are confident that coach Anderson will continue the outstanding tradition Hamilton men’s basketball has enjoyed for many years to come.”

 

“I’m excited about the opportunity to coach what has traditionally been one of the best college basketball programs in the country,” Anderson said. “I’m following a legend, but I’m looking forward to the challenge and to the hard work that’s ahead.”

 

In his career at Clarkson, Anderson led the team to the most wins in any five-year period of the program’s history. His 2001-02 team finished 19-10, which was the most wins in school history. That team advanced to the ECAC regional finals and was the third-most improved Division III men’s basketball team from the previous season. Anderson’s first team finished the 1999-2000 season with a 14-12 record -- its first .500 season in 25 years -- and captured the program’s first-ever postseason bid.

 

Prior to becoming Clarkson’s head coach, Anderson was the top assistant at Le Moyne College from 1997-99. Those teams were 33-20 in his two years at the NCAA Division II school. Anderson was also the top assistant at Clarkson during the 1996-97 season. Anderson has been involved in more than 30 basketball camps and clinics. He was a lecturer, teacher and coach at the Five-Star Basketball Camp, which is regarded as the nation’s most prestigious summer basketball camp, from 1996-98.

 

Anderson graduated from Wesleyan (Conn.) University in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in American studies. He was a four-year starter, a two-year captain and is the fifth all-time leading scorer at the school. Anderson earned his master’s degree in athletic administration from Florida State University in 1996. In high school, he was an all-state and All-American basketball player in Iowa.

 

Anderson replaces Tom Murphy, who retired after coaching the men’s basketball program for 34 seasons. Murphy finished with a record of 602-262 (.697). He is one of just four Division III men’s basketball coaches to win 600 games in a career. Murphy’s teams won 20 games or more in a season fifteen times, captured 10 ECAC regional titles, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament eight times in the last ten years. The two-time national coach of the year has coached 13 different players to 20 All-America honors, which is the most among all Division III programs.