St. Louis, MO – The evolving face of the Missouri Valley Conference took a positive turn last week. Drake University filled the only league coaching vacancy by hiring a man with a deep resume of success.
Ray Giacoletti has had successful head coaching jobs at the Division 1 level and has spent the last six seasons as an assistant at Gonzaga University. Giacoletti, who turns 51 this month, was born in Peoria and has had a long standing desire to return to the Midwest, and in particular to the MVC.
His D 1 coaching record is 123-90 with time at both Eastern Washington and Utah and he was 48-33 at North Dakota State (while it was still a D2 school). Giacoletti has coaching history in the Valley. He was an assistant at Illinois State in the early 1990’s.
As he was introduced to Drake media and fans he said he’s excited to be back in the Midwest.
“I’m excited to be a part of the Drake family and Des Moines community. I’ve followed Missouri Valley Conference basketball my whole life and I’m looking forward to making Drake basketball the best it can be. There are a lot of similarities to where I’ve been and this is a similar situation where there is the potential to grow a program.”
During Giacoletti’s tenure as an assistant with Gonzaga the Zags won five West Coast Conference championships and achieved a winning percentage of .799.
Meanwhile, the MVC has stayed mum on replacing Creighton University in the league’s basketball roster. Check on our story about possible replacements for the Bluejays. Dennis Dodd of CBS Sportsline reported recently that Missouri Kansas City is being looked at by league officials.
The Kangaroo program is one of the schools we mentioned last month and has recently added a new coach in Louisville assistant Kareem Richardson. Richardson has Valley roots too. He played at Evansville and was an assistant on Valley members Indiana State, Evansville and Drake.
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