NCAA Coaching Carousel: New Mexico Hires UC San Diego Coach Eric Olen
New Mexico has hired UC San Diego head coach Eric Olen to replace Richard Pitino, who left to take the Xavier job.
Olen led UC San Diego to the 2025 NCAA Tournament in its first year of eligibility and posted a 30-5 record, 18-2 in the Big West.
'We're thrilled to welcome Eric Olen as the new head coach of Lobo Men's Basketball,' said New Mexico AD Fernando Lovo in a statement. 'Eric is a proven winner with an incredible track record. Beyond the accolades and success on the court, he is a values-driven leader who puts student-athletes first. We're confident he'll bring tremendous energy and vision to our program. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Eric, his wife Lauren, and their daughters Avery and Madeline — we're excited to have them join the Lobo family here in Albuquerque.'
The all-time winningest coach in UC San Diego history with a 240-119 record, Olen spent the last 21 years at the school, including the past 12 as head coach. He guided the Tritons during their transition from Division II to Division I, taking the program to new heights at both levels.
'I am honored to be the next Head Coach of New Mexico Men's Basketball,' said Olen. 'I want to thank President Stokes, Fernando Lovo, and the UNM leadership team for this opportunity. This is one of the most special programs in college basketball, and my family and I are thrilled to be a part of Lobo Nation! I can't wait to get to work and write the next great chapter in New Mexico basketball history.'
Olen is coming off a historic 2024-25 season at UCSD, as the Tritons won the Big West regular season and tournament titles and made their March Madness debut in their first year of eligibility. He led the program to a 30-5 record as the Tritons were second in the nation in scoring margin at +17.5 points per game. UCSD went 18-2 in the Big West to win the regular season title before winning the Big West Tournament in their debut in the championship. Olen was honored as Big West Coach of the Year and the NABC Pacific District Coach of the Year.
In 2024-25 the Tritons had a KenPom ranking of 39 and finished 31 in the final NET rankings. Both of those rankings are the highest for any team in college basketball outside of the Power-5 conferences and the WCC. In addition to ranking second in Division I in scoring margin, the Tritons under Olen ranked in the national Top-10 in assist-turnover ratio (fourth at 1.80), scoring defense (sixth at 61.8), winning percentage (seventh at .857), turnovers forced (eighth at 15.91 per game) and three-pointers made per game (ninth at 10.7 per game).
From 2021-24, Olen guided UC San Diego through the Division I transition period, capping the four-year process with a 21-12 record in 2023-24 as he won his first Big West Coach of the Year honor. The Tritons went 15-5 in the Big West that season, finishing runner-up in the regular season, but weren't eligible for the conference tournament. UCSD did earn a berth in the CBI, the school's first Division I postseason appearance.
Olen's first seven seasons as a head coach at UCSD came at the Division II level, as he led the Tritons to five straight NCAA Tournament appearances from 2016 to 2020 after the school had just one prior Division II postseason appearance before that span. UCSD reached the NCAA West Region final in 2016 and 2017 and were the No. 1 seed for the 2020 NCAA West Regional before the tournament was cancelled due to the COVID pandemic. In 2019-20, Olen was named the NABC West Region Coach of the Year, leading the Tritons to a 30-1 record and a No. 4 national ranking in their final season in Division II. Overall, Olen led UCSD to three California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) regular season titles and four consecutive CCAA tournament crowns as he was the 2017 and 2020 CCAA Coach of the Year.
Prior to elevating to head coach at UC San Diego, Olen was an assistant coach at the school for nine seasons. During his tenure as an assistant, he served as the recruiting coordinator and worked with the program's post players. He was promoted to the top assistant after just one year on the staff.
A native of Mobile, Ala., Olen played collegiately at Spring Hill College in his hometown. He helped the Badgers to three straight appearances to the NAIA National Tournament, including trips to the NAIA Elite Eight in 2000 and 2001.
Olen graduated from Spring Hill in 2004 with a degree in Finance. Olen and his wife, Lauren, have two daughters, Avery and Madeline.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Iowa baseball star earns Perfect Game All-American honors
Iowa baseball star earns Perfect Game All-American honors After a stellar junior campaign with the Hawkeyes, Iowa baseball ace pitcher Cade Obermueller has been named a Perfect Game third-team All-American. The left-hander is the Hawkeyes' first All-American honoree since Brody Brecht and Keaton Anthony earned it in 2023. The Iowa City, Iowa native earned the third-team All-America distinction after going 5-3 with a 3.02 ERA in 15 starts. He posted five quality starts and fanned 117 batters over 83.1 innings. His 117 punchouts rank second all-time in program history for strikeouts in a season. The highlight of Obermueller's 2024-25 season was his complete-game performance at Northwestern on March 4. In that game, he recorded a career-high 12 strikeouts while giving up only one hit, one run, and one base-on-balls in a 12-1 Hawkeyes run-rule win. Obermueller's third-team All-American honors add to his growing list of accomplishments from the past season, which now includes a 2025 All-Big Ten Tournament team and an ABCA/Rawlings NCAA All-Midwest Region first-team selection. While Obermueller could be in line for more honors following the conclusion of the 2025 College World Series later this month, a potential return for his senior season with the Hawkeyes could be vital to the program's success as they hope to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2023. Contact/Follow us @HawkeyesWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Iowa news, notes, and opinions. Follow Scout on X: @SpringgateNews
USA Today
3 hours ago
- USA Today
Diversity in College World Series field reminds us what college sports is all about
Diversity in College World Series field reminds us what college sports is all about Show Caption Hide Caption Jeremiah Smith, Ryan Williams on cover of EA Sports College Football '26 EA Sports chose Ohio State's Jeremiah Smith and Alabama's Ryan Williams to be on the cover of College Football '26. We talk to the athletes about what this moment means to them. This week, with the approval of the House vs. NCAA settlement, college sports officially split into two. The power conference schools are going to pay their athletes, make their own rules and take the responsibility of enforcement and punishment from an NCAA that was never very good at it in the first place. Is there fear and resentment across the rest of the college sports landscape about where this is all headed? Of course there is. Schools at the lower end of Division I see a power grab led by the Big Ten and SEC and wonder if the clock is ticking on their conference's automatic access to NCAA championships and perhaps even a full divorce. To many folks in the smaller conferences, it feels like they're paying the price for a problem they didn't cause. But in a world where it increasingly feels like the new financial realities of the Big Ten and SEC are driving a land grab for postseason bids, starting with the College Football Playoff but undoubtedly trickling down to every sport in the future, this year's College World Series shows why some traditions are worth preserving. The eight teams that advanced to Omaha over the last few days represent seven different conferences: The SEC (LSU and Arkansas) The Big 12 (Arizona) The ACC (Louisville) The Big Ten (UCLA) The Sun Belt (Coastal Carolina) The Missouri Valley (Murray State) The Pac-12 (Kind of. Oregon State played as an independent this season but was crucial in the effort to resurrect a new Pac-12, which will begin play in the 2026-27 academic year.) Is such a huge conference spread a bit of an anomaly? Absolutely. In recent renditions of the CWS, you'll see a whole lot of SEC and ACC representation, some strong Big 12 and Pac-12 programs (before it imploded) and your occasional interloper from outside the power conferences. But this year's field underscores a very simple point that the SEC and Big Ten would be wise to remember as they go about the business of remaking college sports: At the end of the day, competition is what this is all about. And even if that means you come up on the short end some years, it's nothing to be afraid of. That's just sports. Though we can find a thousand things the NCAA has done wrong on its journey toward the professionalization of college sports, it did one thing that was really genius. In constructing its format for national championship tournaments, it ensured that all Division I conferences would be represented by an automatic qualifier. This means that when the men's basketball players at SIU-Edwardsville began last season, they could dream of playing in March Madness. Was there a realistic chance to win a national championship? Of course not. Were they even likely to win a game? Heck no. Were they better than dozens of basketball teams who missed the tournament? According to the computers, they weren't even in the top 200. But they won their conference, earned their moment on the big stage and got blown off the court by Houston. That's what usually happens. But every now and then, you get an upset everyone remembers. Either way, the possibility of that moment keeps those programs viable and those communities invested in college basketball. Overall, it's a pretty great system. Folks at those lower levels have good reason to wonder if they'll keep those automatic bids going forward, not just in basketball but a variety of sports. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, in particular, has made public comments that could be considered threatening to the notion of equal access regardless of conference size or strength. Meanwhile, there was talk a few weeks back that the SEC and Big Ten could be interested in a 16-team CFP format where they get four automatic bids each, with the ACC and Big 12 getting two apiece and one going to the top-ranked Group of Five champion. It seems as if that idea has subsequently died down. Even though the ACC and Big 12 locking in two bids each might have been tempting on the surface, formalizing an existence as second-class citizens would not have gone over well with those fan bases. If you were to construct the CWS on the same kinds of principles that the Big Ten and SEC have been flirting with this year in their CFP expansion discussions, you'd never have seven conferences involved like this year. And the reason it's such a timely development for college sports is that it should remind people in the industry why they do this in the first place. Everyone understands that a true level playing field is impossible, but competition is about more than revenue on a spreadsheet. And when it comes to the structure of Division I, giving an automatic bid to every conference underlines that they are partners in an enterprise whose mission is to deliver a good product – even if a lot of those partners can't stack up competitively to the mighty SEC. You can't deliver as good of a product for the sport – the entire sport – by stacking the deck and using historical performance to engineer future outcomes in your favor. You can only do it by making the postseason possibility available to everyone and letting the chips fall where they may. Even in a more complicated and professionalized world, you don't need to apologize for the outcome when you just let sports do its thing.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Nets projected to take Michigan C Danny Wolf No. 27 in 2025 NBA Draft
The Brooklyn Nets have some important decisions to make ahead of the 2025 NBA Draft that begins on June 25 in which the team will have five picks to use. Brooklyn is focused on more than just the Draft, but when it comes to their future, the Nets will have to do their homework given that the players they take this year could be crucial members of the roster. In his latest mock draft for Bleacher Report, Jonathan Wasserman projected the Nets to take Michigan center Danny Wolf with the 27th overall pick in the Draft, the last of four first-round picks Brooklyn has at its disposal. Wolf, standing at 6-foot-11 and 252 pounds, is one of the more interesting players in this class given his ability to handle the ball and shoot at his size. Advertisement "Danny Wolf made a strong, final pitch to scouts against Auburn, finishing with 20 points and a number of eye-opening highlights that showcased his creation and shotmaking," Wasserman wrote on Wolf. "Though his three-point numbers might not indicate shooting improvement, he added a pull-up and step-back to his repertoire this year." Wolf, 21, is coming off a junior season with the Wolverines in which he averaged 13.2 points, 9.7 rebounds, 3.6 assists, and 1.4 blocks per game while shooting 49.7% from the field and 33.6% from three-point land. Wolf put forth his production for a Michigan team that finished the 2024-25 regular season with a 27-10 record, allowing them to make the NCAA Tournament where they made it all the way to the Sweet 16 before losing to the Auburn Tigers. While it will be interesting to see if Wolf last until the 27th overall pick in a class that seems to taper off around the 12th pick or so, his skill set will be interesting for every team that has a first-round pick outside of the Lottery. "A 7-footer who made 21 dribble jumpers, served as Michigan's lead playmaker and still averaged 9.7 boards and 1.4 blocks is bound to entice a number of teams," Wasserman continued. This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets projected to take Michigan C Danny Wolf No. 27 in 2025 NBA Draft
