LINCOLN — Bobby Lutz will join Fred Hoiberg’s Nebraska basketball staff as a special assistant, a source confirmed Wednesday. Lutz has 32 years of experience coaching college basketball, including 12 as a Division I head coach at Charlotte, and he has history with Hoiberg.
Lutz was an assistant for Hoiberg at Iowa State during the 2010-11 season before leaving for North Carolina State, where he stayed for five seasons. In 2016, Lutz became an assistant for the Windy City Bulls, the Chicago Bulls’ G League affiliate, while Hoiberg was head coach of the NBA team.
Lutz compiled a 218-158 record as head coach at Charlotte, which was a member of Conference USA before moving to the Atlantic 10 in 2005. The 49ers won one Conference USA regular-season championship two conference tournament titles under Lutz. He also led Charlotte to five NCAA tournament appearances and reached the second round twice.
Lutz landed in Lincoln last week and was with Hoiberg at the Nebraska baseball game Tuesday night. Nebraska has not officially announced his hiring.
Nebraska has officially confirmed one member of Hoiberg’s staff, assistant coach Matt Abdelmassih, who was hired days after Hoiberg signed his contract with Nebraska.
On Wednesday, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports, reported Hoiberg plans to retain assistant coach Armon Gates, who was hired by Tim Miles in May 2018. Gates helped Hoiberg solidify the commitment of Omaha Creighton Prep forward Akol Arop last week.
Before coming to Lincoln, Gates spent five years as an assistant at Northwestern. He made $256,000 last season.
Neither Gates nor Hoiberg responded to requests for comment from The World-Herald.
Assuming Gates is retained, Nebraska would have one more assistant coaching position left to fill. Charlie Henry — a former Iowa State assistant and Windy City Bulls head coach — was connected to Nebraska but instead took a job at Alabama.
Hoiberg will have an assistant salary pool of $1 million, a bump from the $770,000 paid to Tim Miles’ assistants last season.
