Saint Louis Billikens Hire Travis Ford as New Men’s Basketball Coach
SLU settled on a replacement for Jim Crews, hiring Travis Ford as the new head men’s basketball coach on Tuesday.
Update: In a Tuesday evening release, the Billikens’ media relations staff denied reports that any coach had been hired, for what that’s worth.
As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Stu Durando reported on Tuesday night, the Saint Louis Billikens have selected a new head basketball coach to replace Jim Crews, agreeing to terms with 46-year-old Travis Ford, who was most recently the head coach at Oklahoma State.
Ford, who played his freshman year at the University of Missouri in 1989-90 before transferring to the University of Kentucky, has generally had success throughout his 16-season career while spending time at Eastern Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma State. Since he concluded the five-season stint at Eastern Kentucky, which began his head coaching career and saw him go 61-80, Ford has had coached just three teams with losing records. Two of those teams came during his first years at UMass and Oklahoma State, respectively, while the third came this past season.
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Ford has taken his teams to the NCAA tournament six times in 16 seasons, leading Eastern Kentucky there in 2004-05, then taking OSU there in 2008-09, 09-10, 12-13, 13-14, and 14-15. Ford, who had led his teams to three straight tournaments and had his teams in the AP rankings at some point during each of those seasons, learned how hostile the college basketball coaching landscape can be when he was fired after coaching the Cowboys to a 12-20 record this season.
Perhaps the most immediate benefit that SLU fans will see from Ford is his superiority as a recruiter compared to Crews, who wasn’t able to put together a very competitive group after five Rick Majerus-recruited seniors departed following the 2013-14 season. Ford was able to bring in some big names at Oklahoma State, including current NBA players Marcus Smart and Markel Brown, as well as prized recruit and collegiate star Le’Bryan Nash. He also lured Gary Forbes, who went on to play two NBA seasons, to UMass as a transfer from Virginia.
Despite the team’s failure in 2015-16, Ford even put together a pretty good recruiting class prior to his final season at OSU, bringing in two four-star prospects. While forward Davon Dillard barely played for the Cowboys, Ford’s other top recruit, guard Jawun Evans, led the team with 4.9 assists per game and was second on the squad with 12.9 points per contest.
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Ford will be the 26th head coach in Billikens history, and he’ll attempt to become the third straight coach, following Crews and Majerus, to lead the school to an NCAA Tournament.