Tenth-year Nicholls head men’s basketball coach J.P. Piper has rounded out his coaching staff heading into the new season, announcing the hires of Darren Kohne and Liam Tribe-Simmons as assistant coaches for the 2013-14 year.
With over a dozen years of coaching experience, Kohne joins the Colonels after spending last season with the Sioux Falls Skyforce of the NBA Developmental League, while Tribe-Simmons, a former collegiate basketball player, spent three years as a teacher and coach at Northwest Christian School in Phoenix, Ariz.
"With bringing on Darren and Liam to the team this season I believe we have a solid group of coaches that will be able to work well with each other and get the best out of our players," Piper said. "Both bring a great wealth of knowledge and desire to the game and I have no doubts they will fit it well here at Nicholls."
Kohne comes to Nicholls after spending one season as the top assistant for the Skyforce, the NBA D-League affiliate for the back-to-back world champion Miami Heat. During his time in Sioux Falls, the Skyforce saw a 10-win improvement from the previous season while coaching 11 former or current NBA players, including sending three players to the D-League All-Star Game and the D-League Most Valuable Player in Andrew Goudelock.
Before that, Kohne was a six-year member of the Central Michigan coaching staff that helped produce four of the top rated recruiting classes in the Mid-American Conference. He is very familiar with Nicholls and the Southland Conference, as he was a three-year assistant at Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches. Since beginning his career, Kohne has overseen 43 players who have gone on to play professionally.
For two seasons Tribe-Simmons was an assistant coach NCS, eventually being promoted to head coach and head of the physical education department in his final season where he led the school to a 17-12 overall record and second round of the Arizona state playoffs.
A three-year player at San Diego Christian College, Tribe-Simmons was a part of a NCCAA National Championship, achieved a top-ten NAIA ranking and national tournament appearance in his final season on the court in 2006. He played for a number of teams in his native Australia, including the Newcastle Hunters U23 team and New South Wales U20 team, among others. He would get his first assistant coaching experience with Newcastle, assisting with the U18 and U14 teams in 2006 and 2007.
He remained at SDCC and served as an assistant coach where the team went 27-5 and achieved another national ranking and national tournament berth in the NAIA, winning the Golden State Athletic Conference. Tribe-Simmons helped recruit three Australian players to the school in that season.
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