At WKU, new men’s hoops coach Steve Lutz plans to end a frustrating status quo
Given the success Jeff Brohm had (30-10) coaching football at Western Kentucky University from 2014 through 2016, it is not shocking that WKU turned to a Brohm disciple to restore its program to prominence.
It is rather surprising that the Brohm adherent hired to elevate a Hilltoppers team coaches men’s basketball.
While Steve Lutz was serving (2017-2021) as an assistant basketball coach to Matt Painter at Purdue, he spent ample time studying how the Boilermakers then-football coach, Brohm, did things.
“I’ve always been intrigued by football, so I went over to the football offices (at Purdue) a lot,” Lutz said Tuesday. “I would sit in on meetings and would watch practice. (I would) watch the way they did things and their leadership styles, the way (Brohm) managed his staff, especially. I spent a good amount of time over there.”
So when Lutz, coming off two successful seasons as the head hoops coach at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, found himself in the mix this spring to become the new head man at Western Kentucky, he turned to Brohm for guidance.
The new Louisville football coach, “kind of talked me through everything and told me a lot about” working at Western, Lutz says.
If ever a coach seems a match for the moment at a particular university, it is Lutz at WKU.
In his two-year run as Texas A&M-Corpus Christi head man, Lutz, 50, batted 1.000 in getting his teams into March Madness. After inheriting a program that had won five games total the season before he arrived, Lutz coached Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to back-to-back appearances in the 2022 and 2023 NCAA Tournaments.
The Islanders even won a NCAA tourney game in 2023, beating OVC Tournament champion Southeast Missouri State 75-71 in the First Four.
It is obvious why a coach with a demonstrated knack for getting his teams into the NCAA Tournament would be appealing to Western Kentucky.
The tradition-rich Hilltoppers program has not made a NCAA tourney appearance since 2013. Every other NCAA Tournament-eligible Division I team in Kentucky has made a more-recent trip to the tourney than has Western.
Much went right for WKU men’s hoops during the seven-year (2016 through 2023) coaching tenure of Rick Stansbury. The Hilltoppers won 11 games over teams from Power Five conferences, including victories over Arkansas (SEC), Louisville (ACC), Purdue (Big Ten), Oklahoma State (Big 12) and USC (Pac-12).
Stansbury made WKU a magnet for the best in-state players. The coach signed five winners of the Kentucky Mr. Basketball Award — Camron Justice (2015), Carson Williams (2016), Taveion Hollingsworth (2017), Dontaine Allen (2019) and Dayvion McKnight (2020) — either directly from high school or out of the transfer portal.
What Stansbury, the Meade County native and former Mississippi State head man, did not do was get Western Kentucky into the NCAA Tournament. Three times (2018, 2019 and 2021) the Hilltoppers suffered agonizing defeats in the Conference-USA Tournament finals while one victory short of the Big Dance.
“Under Rick, we checked a lot of boxes as a program,” says WKU Athletics Director Todd Stewart. “... But we didn’t check the biggest box — and that’s making the NCAA Tournament. I think the history of the Western Kentucky program is such, that just has to be something that we are going to. That’s not easy to do. It doesn’t mean it has to happen every year. ... But that’s a streak we have to break.”
When Stansbury and WKU parted ways after last season’s disappointing 17-16 campaign, Stewart went looking for a coach with a formula to, at last, get Western back into March Madness.
At Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Lutz, a San Antonio native, executed an immediate program turnaround, in part, via effective use of the transfer portal. He brought in 10 new transfers before his first season. A program that had been 5-19 in 2020-21 went 23-12 and 24-11 in Lutz’s two years.
“We recruited the right people,” Lutz says. “They were about winning. They were about playing for the team vs. getting their own stats and worried about themselves. So I made, we made, the right choices there.”
Lutz is trying to execute a similar strategy at WKU. Since his hiring, the Hilltoppers have added six transfers — four from other Division I schools and two from junior colleges.
Western still has two scholarships open for 2023-24. “I’m just like everyone else, man, I’m still looking” for roster additions, Lutz says.
Moving forward, Stewart says WKU fans need to be prepared for a holistic, if less showy, recruiting approach as Lutz tries to consistently build teams that can earn a place in “Bracketville.”
“When (Stansbury) was here, certainly, we recruited a lot of notable names,” the WKU AD says. “With Steve — and I’m not saying we didn’t do this before — it’s really more about the sum of the parts. Already, I like how he has methodically gone about assimilating a roster. As more and more players get added, it makes more and more sense.”
Lutz says he comes into the Western Kentucky job acutely aware of what his primary mission is.
“I certainly understand what the expectation is here,” Lutz says. “They want to be good. They want to win games. They want to win games the right way, but, ultimately, you have to get yourself into the NCAA Tournament.”
This story was originally published June 29, 2023 at 12:08 PM.
