The Recruiting Guy

Sam Houston State hires Mike Ekanem as an assistant

Former Arkansas director of player development Mike Ekanem.

Arkansas director of player development Mike Ekanem has been hired as an assistant coach at Sam Houston State. 

He is the second Arkansas support staff member to leave the staff and be hired as an assistant coach this offseason. 

Former director of scouting and analytics Hays Myers joined the staff of David Patrick at Sacramento State on April 28. 

Ekanem, who worked on Musselman’s staff at Nevada, spent the last previous two seasons as the director of scouting for Texas A&M men’s basketball.

He spent the 2018-19 season at Nevada as a multimedia specialist. Prior to his time with the Wolf Pack, he was at Memphis as a special assistant for two seasons before serving as the video coordinator and recruiting assistant. 

Ekanem coordinated both video and social media for the Tigers and assisted with opponent scouting and recruiting.

Before arriving at Memphis, he worked at Louisiana Tech as an assistant women’s basketball coach for the 2013-14 season.

He also has an NBA background, having worked with the San Antonio Spurs. He spent six seasons working for Spurs Sports and Entertainment as a basketball operations assistant for the Spurs and as director of video and athletic performance for the San Antonio Stars of the WNBA.