After finishing with a winless record in the BIg East during the regular season, DePaul assistant coaches Gary DeCesare and Ramon Williams have resigned. Coach Jerry Wainwright likely needed to significantly change his staff to demonstrate to school officials that he intends to do something to turn around the program after a disappointing season. His son, who was also a Blue Demons assistant coach, resigned in March.
Wainwright has hired Tracy Webster to fill one of the open assistant positions. Webster comes to Chicago after working for former coach Billy Gillispie at Kentucky for the past two seasons. He also has worked as an assistant at Illinois, Purdue and Ball State, and his teams have flourished, making the NCAA Tournament or NIT every season, according to a university press release.
Webster spent the last two years at Kentucky where he helped lead the Wildcats to a pair of postseason appearances. A year ago, Kentucky went 22-14 and reached the NIT Quarterfinals following a NCAA Tournament appearance in 2007-08. Before moving to Lexington, he was an assistant coach at Illinois from 2004-07 and an assistant at Purdue during the 2003-04 season. The Illini made NCAA Tournament appearances in each of Webster’s three seasons in Champaign, including a trip to the NCAA Championship game in 2005. Webster’s one season at Purdue saw the Boilermakers make the NIT.
Before his two stops in the Big Ten Conference, Webster spent two seasons at Ball State. The Cardinals put together one of the best seasons in program history under Webster’s watch with a Mid-American Conference West Division title and quarterfinal appearance in the NIT. He started his collegiate coaching career in 1998 as an assistant at UW-Parkside.
