The Maryland men’s basketball team plans to add former Wake Forest and Tulsa head coach Danny Manning to the staff as an assistant coach, a source confirmed Wednesday.
Manning also served as an assistant at Kansas and is a former Jayhawks teammate of Terps coach Mark Turgeon. The 54-year-old fills the vacated spot left by DeAndre Haynes, who joined Shaka Smart’s staff at Marquette as an assistant last week.
Manning, Kansas’ all-time leading scorer, was named the National Player of the Year in 1988. He was the No. 1 overall pick of the 1988 NBA draft and played 15 seasons, being named to two All-Star teams and voted the 1997-98 Sixth Man of the Year.
After retiring as a player in 2003, he joined his alma mater as director of student-athlete development and team manager under coach Bill Self. He was promoted to assistant coach in 2007 and worked in that capacity for five years. In 2012, he was named head coach at Tulsa, where he compiled a 38-29 record in two seasons and captured an NCAA tournament berth.
Manning took the job at Wake Forest in 2014 and was fired in April 2020 after six seasons with a 78-111 record and one NCAA tournament appearance. He spent the past season as a college basketball commentator for ESPN.
A three-time consensus All-American forward, Manning will likely take a lead role in developing frontcourt players such as incoming transfer center Qudus Wahab, sophomore Donta Scott and incoming freshman Julian Reese. Over the years, Manning has coached future
NBA pros such as Marcus and Markieff Morris and John Collins.
“Danny started at the bottom and worked his way up,” Turgeon said of Manning before Maryland played Tulsa in 2013. “He didn’t step on any toes and he kind of waited his turn and got his kids through high school and off to college and became a head coach. He’s been around Larry Brown, Bill Self. He’s been around a lot of good coaches and he’s going to be able to attract players because of who he is.”
Stadium first reported that Maryland was expected to hire Manning.