Former KU assistant coach Joe Dooley returning to Kansas as Jayhawks’ recruiting coordinator for 2022-23 basketball season
Five months after being let go as the head coach at East Carolina, Joe Dooley is returning to a familiar place.
Kansas basketball coach Bill Self confirmed to the Journal-World on Friday night that Dooley is coming back to Lawrence to serve as KU’s recruiting coordinator for the 2022-23 season.
Self told the Journal-World that Dooley will be filling a new position. KU has not had a true recruiting coordinator in recent years.
A native of East Orange, New Jersey, Dooley also has held assistant coaching jobs at South Carolina, New Mexico and Wyoming. He’ll join a Kansas staff that features two assistants he coached with at KU, in Norm Roberts and Kurtis Townsend, and another he coached as a player at KU in second-year assistant Jeremy Case.
All three of Self’s assistants from last season’s national title team will be back on the Kansas bench this season.
The return will mark Dooley’s second stint at Kansas. He served as one of Self’s top assistants from 2003-13 before leaving to be the head coach at Florida Gulf Coast from 2013-18 and then at East Carolina for four seasons.
At FGCU, Dooley was a two-time Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year while guiding the Eagles to regular season titles in 2014, 2017 and 2018 and tournament titles in 2016 and 2017.
Counting his first head coaching stint at ECU from 1995-99, Dooley, 57, owns an all-time record of 215-176. During his time at Kansas, the Jayhawks were 300-59, with a national title and two trips to the Final Four.
Dooley’s hiring is expected to be officially announced sometime next week. The Jayhawks are also slated to begin preseason workouts on Monday, the first day of the fall semester.