Eastern Illinois announced Wednesday the hiring of Marty Simmons as the Panthers’ next head men’s basketball coach. Simmons has been an assistant to Brad Brownell at Clemson for the last three years after spending eleven years as the head coach at alma mater Evansville.
Simmons is a native of Lawrenceville, Illinois who was named Illinois Mr. basketball in 1983 and initially played for Bob Knight at Indiana before transferring to Evansville. He started his coaching career with the Purple Aces, spending a total of ten seasons as an assistant under Jim Crews over two stints before he was hired as the head coach at then-Division II SIU Edwardsville in 2002. He went 88-59 and went to two NCAA D-II Tournaments over five seasons at SIUE before getting the job at Evansville.
With the Purple Aces, Simmons was 184-175 over eleven seasons, went to two CBIs and three CITs and won the 2015 CIT title. During his time at Clemson, the Tigers reached the 2019 NIT and the 2021 NCAA Tournament.
An introductory press conference is being held at EIU this Thursday.
credit to AP for the image
