Hahn hired as WVU’s assistant men’s basketball coach
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) – Former La Salle coach Billy Hahn has been named assistant basketball coach at West Virginia. “Obviously, Billy brings a wealth of experience and contacts to enable us to better recruit the East as well as the Midwest,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said.
Hahn coached for three seasons at La Salle from 2001 to 2004, losing his job after three players were charged with rape. Two players were acquitted at trial and charges were dropped against the third.
Before coaching at La Salle, Hahn was an assistant to Gary Williams for 12 seasons at Maryland, earning a school-record eight straight trips to the NCAA tournament. In 2002, the year after Hahn left, Maryland won the national championship with many of his recruits. Hahn was rewarded by his alma mater with a championship ring.
Hahn began his career in 1975 as an assistant at Morris Harvey College in Charleston.
He also had assistant coaching stints at Davidson, Rhode Island and Ohio before taking over the Bobcats in 1986, serving three years as head coach.
“Bob and I go way back,” Hahn said. “When I was the head coach at Ohio and he was the head coach at Akron, I used to schedule him every year. I did the same thing when I was at La Salle and he was at Cincinnati.
“I knew to play Bob’s teams, you had to be tough-minded and prepare a certain way to be successful against him. By playing Bob and his teams, it made our teams better.”
In recent years, Hahn, 53, has been a director of a New Jersey-based instructional camp and served as a college basketball television analyst.