Radford hires Zach Chu, Who is he? What to Expect?
Breaking down Radford's new HC, and what will come with Chu.
Saturday afternoon/evening, the great Jon Rothstein announced Radford’s newest head coach and it was a shocker, out of the three finalists, Radford picked none of them.
Radford chose to hire Zach Chu, the Chief Strategist for Men’s Basketball for Andy Enfield at SMU.
The SMU assistant also has NBA experience working for Rick Carlisle during his time during the Mavericks and Pacers, Coach Chu also was a walk-on at Richmond from 2011-2015.
During Chu’s time with the Mavericks, Chu helped the Mavericks achieve the most efficient offense in NBA History at the time with an offensive rating of 115.9,
Chu also took the Pacers to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2014 while having the currently 3rd highest offensive efficency in NBA History.
Zach Chu is the son of former Miami Assistant Coach, Sewanee HC and Founder and CEO of TriColor Holding (Subprime Car Lender), Daniel Chu.
Fan Reaction:
To say there have been mixed reactions to this hiring would be an understatement, some are praising Radford for going out of the box, and justly so.
Some people are bashing the hire as you had one of the top MM assistants in Shane Nichols working inside the building, along with JD Byers a solid HM assistant and Kyle Getter another solid assistant at Notre Dame as finalists.
My Reaction:
I would have picked Shane Nichols or JD Byers and at the time it was announced, I was very unhappy.
BUT, as time starts to take over, the hire is starting to wear off onto me. Not to the levels of excitment I would have had with Shane or JD.
I think this is more indicitive of the current state of college athletics, needing more brains people leading teams than just ball coaches leading teams, if Coach Chu gets solid assistants around him, Radford could be very well off.
I look forward to see what Coach Chu does this offseason and more importantly DURING the season, especially with an expected portal exodus.