Danielle O'Banion named KSU's women's basketball coach

As expected, Kent State made its hiring of Danielle O'Banion official Wednesday afternoon, announcing that the former Memphis assistant coach will begin her first head coaching position with the Golden Flashes' womens' basketball team following a 1 p.m. news conference Thursday at the M.A.C. Center.

Here's a portion of the release:

O’Banion takes over the Kent State program following a four-year stint in Memphis, including the last two as Associate Head Coach. Owning the reputation as a proven national recruiter, she served as designated recruiting coordinator for the program helping the Tigers ink three nationally-ranked recruiting classes. The highly-touted recruiting classes fostered by O’Banion have lived up to their billing on the court as well guiding the program into the postseason each of the last three years.

With the assistance of her guidance Memphis has accomplished just as much in the classroom during her tenure. The program has currently graduated 29-straight seniors from its roster, not counting the five-member class of 2012 (two of which already have their respective degrees). Just this last fall six student-athletes from the team achieved a GPA of 3.0 or higher.

Classroom success and deep runs through the postseason are nothing new to the Arlington, Va. product. In 10 years as a collegiate coach she has been on staff for nine postseason teams, including a Final Four and two Sweet 16 berths while on staff at Minnesota from 2003-07. In addition she has been a part of two other first round NCAA appearances with the Gophers and one while at Harvard in 2002.

Kent State students, faculty, staff and the general public are invited to attend Thursday's press conference on the main floor of the MAC Center. Or it can be
viewed live online at: https://ksutube.kent.edu/watchlive.php?playthis=0444.