NEW ORLEANS — University of Kansas assistant coach Danny Manning has accepted the head coaching position at Tulsa, the school announced on Thursday.
Manning joins Barry Hinson as the second KU assistant to leave for a head coaching job during the Final Four week in New Orleans. Hinson, the director of basketball operations at KU, will take over as head coach at Southern Illinois.
Both Manning and Hinson will stay with KU until the end of the Final Four.
“Right now my focus is on Kansas and its participation in the Final Four,” Manning said in a statement released by Tulsa on Thursday. “We’ve worked extremely hard to get to this point and we want to keep it going for another few days.”
Kansas will play Ohio State in the Final Four semi-finals on Saturday night.
“Danny Manning is one of the most accomplished, humble people you’ll ever meet,” KU head coach Bill Self said in a statement on Thursday. “He’s done more in his life through the athletic world than just about anybody, but you would never know it in visiting with him, as he never ever talks about himself.”
Manning, a two-time consensus All-American, is KU’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder, and helped lead the Jayhawks to the 1988 NCAA championship. He takes over the Tulsa GoLden Knights from Doug Wojcik, who was fired earlier this month after leading the team to a 17-14 record.
Tulsa has not made the NCAA tournament since 2003. Bill Self was head coach at Tulsa from 1997 to 2000.
