Tennessee Tech is finalizing a five-year deal to make Tobin Anderson its next men’s basketball coach, sources told ESPN on Thursday.
A former head coach at Iona, Fairleigh Dickinson and Division II St. Thomas Aquinas, Anderson is best known for leading 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson to an upset over 1-seed Purdue in the 2023 NCAA tournament.
He spent this past season at South Florida as special assistant to head coach Bryan Hodgson, helping guide the Bulls to 23 wins and an American Athletic Conference regular-season title.
Anderson won 209 games in nine seasons at St. Thomas Aquinas, advancing to seven straight Division II NCAA tournaments. He was hired by Fairleigh Dickinson in 2022 and led the Knights to a 17-win improvement and a second-place finish in the Northeast Conference. They lost to Merrimack in the conference tournament championship game, but with the Warriors ineligible for the NCAA tournament, the league’s automatic bid went to Fairleigh Dickinson.
The Knights beat Texas Southern in the First Four, then pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NCAA tournament history, knocking off 1-seed Purdue to become just the second 16-seed to beat a 1-seed.
Anderson parlayed that Year 1 success into the Iona job, replacing Rick Pitino in 2023. Despite going 33-34 (22-18 in the MAAC) in two seasons, he was let go after last season.
At Tennessee Tech, he replaces John Pelphrey, who spent seven seasons in charge of the Golden Eagles.
