No headline

L-C State men’s coach takes

job at Central Washington

ELLENSBURG, Wash. — Brandon Rinta, head men’s basketball coach at Lewis-Clark State College the last seven seasons, has been hired as basketball coach at his alma mater, Central Washington.

Rinta compiled a 164-62 record at L-C State, which is the highest winning percentage by a Warriors hoop coach in the past 50 years. Rinta becomes CWU’s 14th head coach in its 116-year history and just the fifth in the past 88 years.

“This is a special opportunity for me to come back to the school that I played for and be a part of the Central Washington men’s basketball legacy for a second time. My time at Central was some of the best years of my life and I don’t feel I could have chosen a better college basketball program to play for, especially from the standpoint of going on to be a college coach,” Rinta said. “Over the last 50 years the CWU basketball family has created a large network of coaches and I am proud to be associated with that group.”

Rinta led the Warriors to three Frontier Conference regular season championships and a pair of conference tournament titles, and advanced to the NAIA tournament five times.

Prior to Lewis-Clark State, Rinta spent five seasons at Great Northwest Athletic Conference member Northwest Nazarene as Associate Head Coach under Tim Hills. From 2001-06, he was an assistant coach at Eastern Washington University.

“When we coached together at Eastern Washington, we went to the NIT and NCAA Tournaments, and Brandon deserved as much credit as anyone on our staff in helping us get there,” former EWU head coach Ray Giacoletti said. “There is no doubt in my mind that Central chose the right guy.”

The Chehalis, Wash. native prepped at W.F. West High School and began his college career at Yakima Valley Community College, before finishing at CWU.

Muscatell named women’s

basketball

assistant at Idaho

MOSCOW — Idaho women’s basketball head coach Jon Newlee filled out his coaching staff, announcing the hire of Drew Muscatell, who spent the last three seasons as an assistant at the University of Portland.

Muscatell, 26, will largely work with Idaho’s post players. He will also be heavily involved in both scouting and recruiting.

Muscatell, a 2013 graduate of the University of Oregon, was hired on at Portland in 2015. He was honored by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) as one of its Thirty Under 30 this past March. The list recognizes the up and coming trailblazers in the women’s basketball profession.

Prior to his arrival at Portland, he served as the video coordinator at San Jose State. Muscatell was also a practice player during his four years at Oregon.

His father, Dan, was the head coach at Sacramento State for six seasons and is currently an assistant coach at San Jose State.