Loyola (Maryland) has hired Georgia Tech assistant Tavaras Hardy as its next head basketball coach, the school announced Wednesday.
Hardy, 38, has worked under Josh Pastner with the Yellow Jackets for the past two seasons after spending three years at Georgetown and seven at Northwestern. Hardy recruited Jessie Govan and Paul White while at Georgetown, and Drew Crawford and JerShon Cobb at Northwestern.
"I am thrilled to welcome Tavaras Hardy to the Greyhound family as our men's basketball coach," Donna M. Woodruff, the assistant vice president and director of athletics, said in a statement. "During a thorough and exhaustive search process, he clearly demonstrated himself to be a talented coach with the knowledge and experience to not only build our men's basketball program into a perennial contender within the Patriot League, but one who will help us prepare the young men in his program for life after basketball as both scholars and citizens."
Hardy, a Chicago native, played at Northwestern and earned All-Big Ten honors on two occasions.
Hardy replaces G.G. Smith, who was fired. Smith, son of longtime college coach Tubby Smith, failed to finish .500 or better in any of his five seasons at the helm.
Loyola will formally introduce Hardy on April 4.