Colorado State has hired South Plains Junior College assistant coach Jase Herl to its men’s basketball staff as an assistant coach, the school confirmed Tuesday afternoon. In addition, Eustachy promoted long time assistant coach Steve Barnes to associate head coach and has moved Willie Glover up from director of player development to assistant coach.

First-year director of basketball operations Pierce Hornung, a former Colorado State hoops standout, will also move into “more of hands-on basketball role,” according to Eustachy. 

Herl fills one of the two open spots left by outgoing assistant coach Ross Hodge, who left for Arkansas State, and associate head coach Leonard Perry, who accepted the same position at the University of the Pacific. 

“I am really excited about Jase joining our staff,” CSU head coach Larry Eustachy said in a press release. “He wants to be a head coach and he has been getting after it in his career. I have known him for several years and feel like he will be a great fit for our program, as he has shown he can recruit quality talent as well as then help them improve on the court.

A Goodland, Kansas native, Herl was named the first ever head coach for the start-up program at Northwest Tech prior to the 2012-13 season. In three years, Herl amassed 56 wins, the most by all head coaches under the age of 30 in the NJCAA by the end of the 2014-15 season. Herl coached current Colorado State guard Gian Clavell and Northwest Tech, and coached recent CSU signee Che Bob this past season at SPC. 

Prior to being named the first ever head coach at Northwest Tech, Herl spent the 2010-11 season as an assistant coach under Jim Heaps at his alma mater Colorado Mesa University (formerly Mesa State College). Herl helped lead the Mavericks to an 18-10 record and an NCAA tournament berth in his lone season on the CMU coaching staff.
     

As a player at Colorado Mesa University, Herl was an integral part of the 2009 team that reached as high as the No. 9 seed in the NABC/Division II polls, the highest national ranking in school history. Herl was named to Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference First Team as well as Conference Defensive Player of the Year and All-Academic First Team following his senior season in 2009-10.

Barnes, who has 31 years of collegiate coaching experience and 32 years overall in collegiate athletics, came to Colorado State after spending the previous eight seasons as the associate head men’s basketball coach under Eustachy at Southern Miss and Iowa State. 

Glover enters his fourth season with the Colorado State men’s basketball program after spending the past three years as the director of player development and video coordinator at CSU . Prior to that, he worked on Eustachy’s staff for four seasons at Southern Mississippi.

Glover worked on the Golden Eagles’ staff as a student assistant for three seasons, 2006-09, while earning his undergraduate degree in coaching in 2009. Following his graduation from USM, he served one season, 2009-10, as the Golden Eagles’ video coordinator and camp director. He also assisted with academics, while retaining duties and responsibilities as a manager.

“With Steve and Willie, I have always been about loyalty and advancing those people, and both of those have been very loyal to me and the program,” Eustachy continued. “I learned from Joe Parker, our AD, to not be hasty and I think I have done that here and we are in a great place moving forward. I’ve never felt better about a staff and, despite how it appears, I have never felt better about advancement of the program. I go back to the expectations and I love that our fans are so involved and that 18 wins is not good enough any more at Colorado State.”

Collegian Senior Sports Reporter Keegan Pope can be reached at kpope@collegian.com and on Twitter @ByKeeganPope.