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KENT, OH – After a loss to Colorado in the quarterfinals of the National Invitational Tournament, the Kent State men’s basketball program received a shock when Geno Ford decided to leave and take the head coaching job with Bradley University. With that departure, Athletic Director Joel Nielsen set up a search committee to see who will be the next head coach of the Golden Flashes. The search took them to the Final Four in Houston, where they interviewed candidates. Ultimately, however, the answer once again came from the current staff as 37-year-old Rob Senderoff was named Thursday afternoon as the 24th head coach of Kent State Men’s Basketball.

“It is both a privilege and an honor to be named the head coach at Kent State.” Senderoff said. “We have established a great tradition of success here, and I am extremely excited about getting to work with the coaching staff and players in order to focus on carrying that tradition forward into the future.”

A native of Spring Valley, New York (Long Island), he spent the last three seasons with the Flashes as Ford’s associate head coach. During this past season, he worked with the big men and saw the emergence of forward Justin Greene into the 2010-11 MAC Player of the Year.

Senderoff was serving his second stint as an assistant with the program. From 2002-06, he was on Jim Christian’s staff while the Flashes won three MAC Eastern Division titles, making one appearance in the NCAA Tournament and three in the NIT. He worked with players such as Antonio Gates, who went on to the NFL with the San Diego Chargers, and John Edwards, who later played in the NBA with the Indiana Pacers..

When Christian was hired to be the head coach at Texas Christian, Senderoff went to Indiana University (2006-07), where he was on the staff of then head coach Kelvin Sampson. While there, he worked with All-American player D.J. White.

Indiana went to the second round of the NCAA Tournament during Senderoff’s stay, but also ended up in NCAA hot water related to telephone calls and Sampson. In 2008, after sitting out a year, Senderoff returned to Kent State with a spot on Ford’s staff.

When asked about the hiring of Senderoff, Nielsen said, “It became fairly clear in our coaching search that the most qualified candidate, and the best choice to lead our program to even greater success in the future, was Rob Senderoff. He has been one of the cornerstones behind our long tradition of winning. He has proven ready to continue enhancing out program’s position as one of the nation’s very best - both on the court and in the class room”

Senderoff was given a three-year deal with a base pay of $250,000 per year plus incentives. Before coming to KSU, the former graduate of SUNY-Albany was a student assistant at the school before coming to the MAC with Miami (1995), where he worked with players such as Wally Szczerbiak and Ira Newble, who both went on to the NBA. From there it was stops at Fordham, Yale, and Towson before joining Christian and the Flashes in 2002.