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Nicholls State University has hired a major-conference assistant coach to lead its men’s basketball program into the future.
Multiple sources confirmed to The Times on Sunday night that the Colonels have hired Clemson assistant coach Richie Riley to the position, which was made vacant last month when the school opted not to retain longtime coach J.P. Piper at the end of his contract.
The school confirmed the sources early Monday morning, announcing that Riley had been hired, pending routine approval from the Louisiana Board of Supervisors.
The school had a press conference to introduce Riley on after our press-time on Tuesday morning.
Calls to Nicholls Athletic Director Rob Bernardi’s desk were unreturned at press-time on Monday afternoon.
See HoumaTimes.com this week for an updated story with quotes from Riley about the Nicholls job.
“It’s a done deal,” the source told the times on Sunday night. “It hasn’t been signed yet, but he’s going to be our new coach into the future. It’s an exciting time, to say the least.”
Riley’s hiring marks the end of a month-long coaching search that generated upwards of 60 applicants, according to Bernardi, who said he was pleased with the interest the job received on the open market.
Bernardi never mentioned names of anyone who’d applied, but sources close to the situation confirmed to The Times that Riley beat out LSU-Alexandria head coach Larry Cordaro and UL-Lafayette assistant coach and Morgan City native Kevin Johnson for the job.
The source said that Bernardi liked Riley’s pedigree and enthusiastic approach – a trait that the AD said he was looking for in the new coach.
A member of Cordaro’s family confirmed to The Times on Saturday that he was one of the finalists, but he said that he’d been told that Riley was the favorite for the job, so he “wasn’t getting his hopes up.”
The Nicholls job will be Riley’s first crack at being a head coach at the collegiate level, though ESPN.com ranked him as one of the best assistant coaches in the country in an online story they ran last year.
Riley spent the past two seasons with Clemson – an ACC program that did not reach postseason play last year after posting a 17-14 record.
In Riley’s first season with the Tigers, the team posted a 16-15 record.
Before coaching in the ACC, Riley spent two seasons at UAB, working under Blazers coach Jerod Haase. Before that, he coached at Eastern Kentucky under Travis Ford.
In the earliest stages of his career, he was a volunteer assistant coach at Georgetown College and an assistant coach at Hawaii-Pacific and Pikeville College.
The details of Riley’s contract at Nicholls were not available at press-time, but he will likely have to take a cut in pay to join the team.
Riley made more than $170,000 last season as an assistant coach at Nicholls, a number that Nicholls can’t come close to matching for its head coach.
Piper made just north of $100,000 per season during the final years of his tenure, and Riley’s starting salary with the team is expected to be a number close to that $100,000 per season figure. •
