Mercer has a new coach.
The Bears hired Bob Hoffman away from the NBA D-League's Rio Grande Valley Raptors. Before that, Hoffman had been a head coach for Southern Nazarene's women, and on the men's side at Oklahoma Baptist and Texas-Pan American.
At OBU, Hoffman was known for providing a sanctuary for guys recruited to D-1 schools who didn't get the playing time they expected. His roster was almost exclusively populated with transfers from OU, Oklahoma State, Tulsa, and the like.
Hoffman takes the Mercer job after the Bears were turned down by Barry Hinson (formerly of Missouri State) and Rex Walters of former A-Sun member Florida Atlantic.
As successful as he has been on the court, however, Hoffman comes to Mercer with some baggage. In 2005, Hoffman left UT-PanAm to take a spot on Kelvin Sampson's bench at Oklahoma. There, the coaching staff was embroiled in a phone call scandal that would ultimately cost Sampson two jobs. Hoffman himself made 28 illegal calls in two seasons working under Sampson, but since most were to a long-standing family friend, the NCAA didn't ding him the way they usually do when an assistant coach is implicated in a violation.
No word yet on where Mark Slonaker will end up next year.
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