Texas Tech Men’s Basketball Completes Coaching Staff After Glynn Cyprien’s Departure

In an under-publicized move, Texas Tech Red Raider men's basketball assistant coach Glynn Cyprien accepted a position as an assistant for the Nigerian National Basketball team.

Coach Cyprien thanked the team, Coach Beard and the Red Raider Nation when he announced his future plans:

With Cyprien out, Texas Tech needed to fill a spot. Coach Beard went and got one of the premier recruiters in Texas Coach Ulric Maligi. Texas Tech made the news official this morning at texastech.com.

Maligi was most recently employed by Texas A&M University and has been coaching high-level collegiate basketball in Texas since 2006, including stints with former Texas Tech coach James Dickey in Houston and with Larry Brown at SMU.

"I feel extremely humbled and blessed to work with and learn from arguably the best college basketball staff in the country," Maligi said. "My family and I could not be coming to Texas Tech at a more exciting time. It's rare in this profession for any coach to work for a reigning National Coach of the Year and a head coach who has sat in the NBA green room back-to-back years. I'm eager to work with all of our players and join the efforts of our entire staff to be fully committed to their development as student-athletes and as men. I cannot wait to win more Big 12 championships and ultimately win a National Championship at Texas Tech. Coach Beard has created an expectation to win big and a championship culture that I'm ecstatic to be a part of."

Maligi has coached and recruited a lot of NBA talent, including Emmanuel Mudiay, Thomas Walkup, Wesley Johnson, Anthony Randolph, Terrel Harris, Danuel House, Jonathon Simmons, Tyler Davis, Semi Ojeyele, Ben Moore, Donald Sloan, Robert Williams, Joe Young, Sterling Brown and Jalen Jones.

In addition to A&M, Houston and SMU, Maligi has also coached at UT Arlington and SFA. He also spent a year at John Lucas Enterprises as the National Scouting Director.