Wichita State basketball hirees veteran assistant coach known for recruiting ties
On the same morning Wichita State men’s basketball head coach Isaac Brown had an assistant coach leave his staff, he has already found a replacement for the 2022-23 season.
Wichita State is expected to hire veteran assistant coach Butch Pierre, who has more than three decades of experience and is currently an assistant at UTEP, sources confirmed to The Eagle. It was first reported by CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein and made official by WSU on Saturday. Pierre will fill the vacancy left by Lou Gudino, who served as WSU’s associate head coach and left the program Wednesday morning for the same title at Ball State.
“Butch is the total package,” Brown said in a statement. “He’s a knowledgeable and experienced coach with a genuine love of people and long history of success. He has left his mark at a number of great programs and all have been better off due to his involvement.”
Pierre, 59, has carved out a reputation as a top recruiter in the college basketball world with a resume that features 16 players who have reached the NBA, including six lottery picks, over his career with notable stops at LSU (1997-08), Oklahoma State (2008-16) and North Carolina State (2016-17) as an associate head coach.
He is considered by many as the architect who helped recruit LSU’s 2006 Final Four team, which featured future NBA players in Glen “Baby” Davis, Garrett Temple and Tyrus Thomas.
Pierre has been on the climb back up in the coaching world since being a part of Mark Gottfried’s staff at NC State, which was fired in 2017, that eventually led to the program being placed on probation in 2021 for infractions, despite Pierre never receiving punishment from the Independent Accountability Resolution Process. Gottfried was given a one-year show-cause order, while former assistant Orlando Early was given a six-year show-cause order for his role in helping facilitate money from Adidas to a recruit’s family.
Pierre landed as Tubby Smith’s director of player personnel at Memphis for the 2017-18 season, then was the head coach at Northwest Florida State from 2019-21. He compiled a 16-22 record at the junior college before resigning last February due to “family medical reasons.”
He returned to the Division I ranks last season when he was plucked by Joe Golding, who had just been hired by UTEP after leading Abilene Christian to a 14-over-3 seed upset over Texas in the 2021 NCAA Tournament. In Pierre’s one season in El Paso, he was part of a staff that helped immediately turn around UTEP, which finished 20-14 and won 20 games for the first time since 2015.
Pierre will have an immediate opportunity to show off his recruiting chops at Wichita State, which currently has at least seven scholarships to hand out in its 2022 recruiting class. He will join a staff that already includes Tyson Waterman and Billy Kennedy.
“I am excited to be working with (Brown) and helping to continue Wichita State’s rich basketball tradition,” Pierre said in a statement.
Although there is no direct coaching connection between Pierre and Brown, the two have known each other for years on the recruiting trail and in coaching circles. They’re also both from the South — Brown from Pascagoula, Miss.; Pierre from Darrow, La. — and played college basketball at a high level — Brown for Texas A&M; Pierre for Mississippi State.
This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 10:19 AM.
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