Georgia Tech has hired former Portland coach Eric Reveno to join coach Josh Pastner’s staff, according to two people familiar with the search. Reveno was head coach at Portland for 10 seasons before he was dismissed at the end of this past season.
In Reveno, Pastner has an older assistant (he is 50 to Pastner’s 38) who brings 10 years of head-coaching experience to the bench. At Portland, Reveno led the Pilots on a three-season run in which they won 60 games in the first half of his tenure. His back-to-back 20-win seasons were just the second and third since 1955-56. He was unable to continue that success, though, and his final record was 140-178.
In his tenure, 100 percent of his players graduated, according to his bio on the Portland web site. The bio also hails him as “a leader in the use of sports performance analysis technology.”
Equally germane to his role at Tech, he was an assistant at Stanford to Mike Montgomery before his hire at Portland and was part of an unprecedented run of success at the school. During his nine seasons (1997-2006), the Cardinal went to the NCAA tournament eight times and won the Pac-10 (now the Pac-12) four times. Reveno gained a reputation for his recruiting ability and also for his development of Stanford’s post players, seven of whom went on to play in the NBA. He was a staff member at the renowned Pete Newell Big Man Camp for six years.
Reveno also played for Stanford 1984-89, helping the Cardinal to their first NCAA tournament berth in his senior season, the team’s first since 1942.
Pastner and Reveno undoubtedly crossed paths in the Pac-10. Pastner was first a player at Arizona when Reveno was at Stanford, and later an assistant coach for the Wildcats at the end of Reveno’s stay in Palo Alto, Calif.
Having spent his entire coaching career on the West Coast, Reveno will face the challenge of learning the Southeast and the ACC.
Reveno is Pastner's second hire this week, following Georgia State assistant Darryl LaBarrie, who could be formally announced by the school Wednesday. That leaves one more spot on the bench for Pastner to fill. Another hire is not believed to be imminent.
Reveno will need to be approved by the school’s human-resources process before the hiring is made official.
