Providence Adds Former HS Coach Ivan Thomas to Coaching Staff, Former Big East Commish Mike Tranghese to be Senior Advisor for Basketball

Providence announced on Monday that they are making some additions to their basketball program staffs. The one that was rumored to be in the works for some time now is Ed Cooley bringing Ivan Thomas into the fold as the Associate Director of Player Development and Video Operations. Thomas moves into Kevin Kurbec’s role as Kurbec slides up into the Coordinator of Basketball Operations role previously held by Mike Jackson. Kurbec served a similar role under Tim Welsh from 2005-08. Jackson is no longer with the Providence program. It has long been believed that Jackson wants to get more into the athletic department side of college basketball and is working towards that.

The part of the announcement that came as a bit of a surprise is that Providence is bringing former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese back into the fold at Providence as a Senior Advisor for Basketball. Tranghese is currently part of the College Football Playoff committee, though he is expected to step down from that post after the current college football season ends. Tranghese “will assist Athletics Director Bob Driscoll with a variety of items involving the College’s basketball programs,” according to the release sent out by Providence’s athletic department.

Thomas coached former Friar Josh Fortune and current Friar Rodney Bullock at Kecoughtan High School in Hampton Roads, Virginia. He resigned from that in early September, according to an article in the Daily Press. Prior to the lead job at Kecoughtan Thomas was the head coach at T.C. Williams High School where he led the 2007-08 team to a Virginia AAA state championship. Thomas also coached with the famed Virginia-based AAU program Boo Williams as an assistant on the 17U Nike EYBL teams. His career record as a high school coach is 205-71 with 127 of those wins coming at Kecoughtan.

Being that Thomas’ role with Providence will be administrative rather than a full-time recruiting assistant the Friars are prohibited from recruiting anyone he coached for 2 years, per NCAA rules. It doesn’t appear anyone on Providence’s radar fits that bill however. In addition to being a successful high school and AAU coach in Virginia, Thomas also has a connection to the Searight family — the family that Cooley lived with for a few years growing up in South Providence.

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Mike Hopkins

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