Miami University men’s basketball head coach John Cooper announced the hiring of Rick Duckett and Sheldon Everett to the RedHawk coaching staff.
Duckett (North Carolina `79, MAT `80), who brings more than 30 years of coaching experience to the post, will serve as associate head coach. He was an assistant coach at Tennessee State last season and has nine years of head coaching experience with three different programs–Fayetteville State (1993-98), Winston-Salem State (1998-01) and Grambling State (2008-09)–compiling a career head coaching record of 156-98. While at Winston-Salem State, Duckett was tabbed NCAA Division II South Athletic Coach of the Year (1999) and twice earned the CIAA Tournament Coaches Award (1999 and 2000), while boasting a 73-19 mark and leading the team to CIAA championships in 1999 and 2000.
Duckett began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, North Carolina, from 1978-80. From there he served as the head coach of the freshman team at Harvard (1980-82), before a one-year stint at R.J. Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He later returned to R.J. Reynolds in 1992-93. Duckett got back into the collegiate ranks as an assistant coach at Central Florida (1983-84). He also served stints as an assistant coach at Jacksonville (1984-85), South Carolina (1985-86; 2001-08) and Wichita State (1987-92).
This is his fourth stint with Coach Cooper as Duckett was an assistant coach during Cooper’s collegiate career at Wichita State and Cooper served as an assistant coach under Duckett at Fayetteville State.
Everett (South Carolina `04) is in his fifth year as an assistant coach. He served three seasons (2009-12) as an assistant coach for the men’s basketball program at Tennessee State under Coach Cooper after a one-year stint (2008-09) as an assistant coach with the Tigers’ women’s basketball program where he helped the team to its first winning record in 14 years.
Everett came to TSU after spending the 2007-08 season as the director of basketball operations at South Carolina. At the 2008 NCAA Final Four in San Antonio, Texas, Everett served as an assistant coach for the American Team of the 2008 DiGiorno College All-Star Game presented by the NABC.
Duckett and Everett helped Tennessee State to a 20-13 record in 2011-12, the program’s first winning record since 1995-96 and the Tigers’ first 20-win season in 32 years. The team knocked off seventh-ranked Murray State on Feb. 9, 2012, 72-68, one of just two losses for the Racers, defeated their first SEC opponent when the Tigers upset South Carolina, 64-63. TSU nearly earned a berth to the NCAA Tournament, falling to Murray State by two points in the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament final.
Stay with HoopDirt for the latest college basketball coaching news and rumors.
