A season of turnover and change for Oklahoma Sooners basketball continues as assistant coach Carlin Hartman will be leaving the program this offseason to join the staff at UNLV under new head coach Kevin Kruger, son of Lon Kruger.
Oklahoma assistant Carlin Hartman is headed to UNLV to help Kevin Kruger as top assistant, source told @Stadium. Will be huge for Kruger.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 30, 2021
This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to many, as with Lon Kruger announcing his retirement last week it seemed like Hartman was likely going to be heading out unless he was able to land the head coaching gig himself, which seemed like a relatively slim possibility.
This move really makes sense for all parties involved. For Hartman, it allows him to go work under someone he knows well in former Sooners assistant Kevin Kruger. For Oklahoma, it allows the new coaching hire to bring in his own assistant with him without much of a hang-up.
Hartman had been an assistant on Lon Kruger’s staff since 2016, spending the previous two years as an assistant at Rice. Widely looked at as one of the better assistant coaches in the country, it seems like only a matter of time before he is able to land a head coaching job himself, with some fans even clamoring for him to take over in Norman this season.
Another potential candidate for the new coaching gig of the Sooners is off the market, and Sooners Wire will continue to provide updates on the coaching search as they become available.