Stony Brook men’s basketball head coach Geno Ford has announced his associate head and assistant coaches starting in the 2019-20 season. Bryan Weber has been promoted to Associate Head Coach and Dan Rickard and Randal Holt have been named as Assistant Coaches.
“I am excited to announce that Bryan Weber is staying on our staff,” Ford said. “He has played an integral part in our successes the last three years. He has familiarity with our program and that will help us to continue to build moving forward.”
Weber was essential on the recruiting front, helping the Seawolves bring in younger talent like America East All-Rookie Member Miles Latimer (Fairfax, Va.), Third Team All-Conference honoree Elijah Olaniyi (Newark, N.J.) and Defensive Player of the Year Jeff Otchere (Bronx, N.Y.).
He also helped mold a Stony Brook defense that held opponents to 39.5 percent from the field, which finished 12th in the country. That unit also finished inside top 20 in defensive rebounds per game (28.3) and opponent’s 3-point field goal percentage (30.1).
“I am fired up to stay at Stony Brook and extremely excited and thankful to work with Coach Ford,” Weber said. “We are on the verge of doing great things with a group of great student-athletes and I truly believe the sky is the limit for this group.”
Also re-joining the men’s staff after three years away will be Dan Rickard, who spent two years with the Stony Brook women’s program and a year at New York University before returning to the men’s team.
“I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to bring Dan Rickard back home to Stony Brook Basketball,” Ford said. “He is a very talented coach and no one has a more thorough understanding of our program in the Division I era.”
Rickard was a member of the 2015-16 championship staff that went to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the program’s Division I history, capping the most successful run in the program’s history. In the last eight seasons, the team won 179 games and captured four America East regular season championships.
“Stony Brook University is a very special place to me and I couldn’t be more excited to once again join the Seawolves family,” Rickard said. “I have gotten to know Coach Ford over the last few years and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to come back and work alongside him and his staff. I cannot wait to get started and work with our student-athletes to build on the foundation that has been set and continue the growth of the basketball program.”
Randal Holt joins the Seawolves as an assistant coach after serving as the Director of Player Development at Kent State this past season. Holt played under Coach Ford during his time with the Golden Flashes and won two MAC Regular Season Championships.
“I am thrilled to reunite with a young, rising star in the business such as Randal Holt,” Ford said. “We won two titles together and will continue to grow this program and work very hard to experience that same winning tradition here.”
Holt ranks first in program history with 247 career 3-pointers. During his senior season, he averaged 14.7 points for the 21-14 Golden Flashes. After his time just outside of Cleveland, he played professionally for the Orange Academy Ratiopharm and the Dresden Titans.
“I am honored to reunite with Coach Ford at Stony Brook,” Holt said. “He was a great mentor to me in my time at Kent State and I am very excited to get to work for him in a program that has continued to grow since he got here. I can’t wait to bring the winning tradition we had with the Golden Flashes to the Seawolves.”
Stony Brook has wrapped up spring practices and will break until the summer semesters start at the end of May. They are coming off a D1-record 24 regular season wins and a second place finish in the America East Conference and return three of the program’s top five scorers from a season ago.
Stony Brook Assistants Set as Weber Promoted, Rickard Returns, Holt Joins
