Eric Olen announces first three assistants to UNM Lobo coaching staff

He’s no longer Olen the Lone.

New UNM coach Eric Olen — hired Sunday as the new Lobos men’s basketball coach — was finally able on Friday to announce he is bringing along three of his assistant coaches from UC San Diego to help him in Albuquerque.

UNM on Friday formally announced the hiring of assistant coaches Tom Tankelewicz, Sam Stapleton and Mikey Howell — three of Olen’s five assistants that helped lead the Tritons to 30 wins, a Big West championship, an NCAA Tournament berth and higher NET and KenPom rankings than any Mountain West program, including the Lobos, this past season.

“I’m thrilled to add Tom, Sam and Mikey to our Lobo Family,” Olen said in a release posted by the school. “They’re talented coaches who have been a huge part of our past success. All three prioritize players and understand how we operate and who we want to recruit.”

His other two assistants this past season in La Jolla remain at UCSD — Clint Allard being promoted to head coach and Steven Aldridge, for now, as the program’s lone assistant.

Olen has to replace the entire staff at UNM as former coach Richard Pitino took assistants Isaac Chew, Tarvish Felton and Aaron Katsuma to Xavier University. He was going to take assistant Dave Pilipovich, too, but Pilipovich instead took an assistant coaching role at Colorado State University.

While Friday was the day UNM gave the green light to formally announce the new Lobo assistants, it isn’t as though Olen didn’t have the decision made for awhile now.

At Tuesday’s introductory press conference in the Davalos practice facility, Olen talked about the staff he planned to hire and spoke in terms of “we” on several occasions when addressing recruiting and how they will build a roster.

So, who are the new guys?

Tankelewicz is the offensive coordinator, if you will. He spent the past three seasons at UCSD and in the past has worked at Presbyterian and UNC Greensboro. He played college basketball at Western Carolina.

“Tom will coordinate our offense and is a rising star in the business,” said Olen. “He has a creative mind and an elite work ethic to go along with being a great teacher. His commitment to his craft is something our players will be able to learn from and his selflessness is contagious. We are very lucky to bring Tom to Albuquerque.”

Stapleton coordinated the recruiting efforts for the Tritons and will do so again with UNM. He was at UCSD the past four seasons and prior to that he spent time at Cal State Dominguez Hills, West LA Community College and was a graduate assistant and video coordinator at Pepperdine. He played collegiately at Occidental College.

“Sam is going to oversee recruiting and roster building,” said Olen. “He is a terrific evaluator and a tireless worker. His ability to identify undervalued prospects and project them into different roles within our structure will help us put together teams that have complementary skillsets. In addition to roster construction, Sam will support the defensive side of the ball where his energy and attention to detail are high level. Lobo fans will love his passion and commitment.”

Howell is a former point guard for Olen at UCSD and has been on staff the past three seasons. He’s the Triton’s all-time leader in assists with 502.

“No one has spent more time in our system than Mikey,” said Olen. “He’s been both a player who thrived in our environment and also a coach who helped players do the same thing. He connects with players and relates to their experiences, having recently been in their shoes. Mikey has always had a feel for the game well beyond his years of experience. He supports the offensive side of the ball and excels in guard development. Lobo Nation is going to be excited about what Mikey brings to our team.”

THEIR FORMER GUYS: Two former UC San Diego Tritons seniors from this past season’s 30-win team that helped Olen and Co. move up to their current gigs at UNM showed their stuff the past couple of days in San Antonio, home of this weekend’s Final Four and Monday’s National Championship game.

Big West Player of the Year Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones, the 6-foot-6 forward from New Zealand, was a West squad teammate of UNM’s Nelly Junior Joseph in the NABC-Reese’s College All-Star game. The West lost 100-91, but Tait-Jones had a versatile statline of six points, five rebounds, an assist and a blocked shot in just 15 minutes of play.

• His UCSD teammate, 6-5 shooting guard Tyler McGhie, won the ETrade men’s 3-point Championship on Thursday night at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio. McGhie beat seven other players invited to compete in the event, scoring 20, 21 then 20 in the three rounds, beating Missouri’s Celeb Grill in the finals (20-15).

This past season, Olen’s Tritons ranked 8th out of 364 Division I teams in 3-point attempt rate, according to KenPom.com. McGhie hit 106 3-s this season at a 36.3% clip and had 12 games in which he hit five or more 3-pointers.

Both Tait-Jones and McGhie transferred to UCSD to play for Olen and the coaching staff out of Division II programs.