Western Kentucky men’s head basketball coach Rick Stansbury has been working to get his staff together for the 2017-2018 season. Stansbury announced Wednesday that he had hire Marc Hsu and Nikita Johnson as assistants.
Hsu joins the Hilltopper staff after serving as an assistant at New Mexico. Before joining the Lobos, Hsu spent the 2016-17 season at New Mexico State, where he helped the Aggies to a 28-6 record, a 20-game winning streak and the WAC Tournament Championship. Hsu was previously a volunteer director of basketball operations for New Mexico State in the 2004-05 season. Hsu spent three seasons (2013-16) at CSU Bakersfield and helped earn the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament berth since transitioning to Division I.
Johnson spent the last four seasons at Stetson and brings more than 30 years of coaching experience to the Hilltopper staff. Before arriving at Stetson, Johnson spent two seasons on the bench at Louisiana-Lafayette, helping the Ragin’ Cajuns post their first winning season in seven years in the 2011-12 campaign. He was the associate head coach at Louisiana Tech from 2007-10, as the Bulldogs made an appearance in the College Insider Tournament in 2010 after recording 24 wins, the program’s most in 25 years.
Johnson served three seasons on John Brady’s staff at LSU from 2004-07, during which the Tigers made a run to the Final Four in 2006, captured the SEC West Division title in 2005 and went a combined 64-34 over this three seasons. From 1993 to 2004, Johnson spent time on the staffs of Murray State, Duquesne, Tennessee State and New Orleans.
(Courtesy WKU Athletics)