PHOTO BY ASSOCIATED PRESS – Montana State head coach Danny Sprinkle relays instructions during game against Arizona on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022, in Tucson, Ariz.
LOGAN — After more than a week of being without an official head coach, Utah State has hired its next head coach according to multiple reports. Danny Sprinkle, now formerly the head coach of Montana State, will lead the Aggies.
Stadium college basketball insider Jeff Goodman first reported the news Friday morning.
Utah State is finalizing a deal to hire Montana State’s Danny Sprinkle, source told @Stadium.
Sprinkle has done a tremendous job at Montana State with back-to-back tourney appearances. He replaces Ryan Odom – who left for VCU.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) April 7, 2023
Sprinkle spent four seasons at Montana State, tallying an 81-43 record including a 52-18 record over the last two seasons. In those previous two seasons, the Bobcats won a regular season Big Sky Conference championship and two conference tournament championships. With those two conference tournament championships, Montana State appeared in back-to-back NCAA Tournaments (as a 14 seed each time) but lost in the first round on both occasions. It was the first time the Bobcats have ever made back-to-back NCAA Tournaments and the first of those appearances was the school’s first since 1996.
The players Sprinkle coached during his four-year run collected nearly one of every end-of-season honor in the Big Sky at some point. Two earned Defensive Player of the Year, two earned Sixth Man of the Year, two earned Big Sky Tournament MVP and one earned Player of the Year (the only one missing is Freshman of the Year).
Sprinkle’s players have also collected nine total All-Big Sky honors spread across six players. Four of those players earned First Team honors at some point under Sprinkle and three were also named to the Big Sky All-Tournament team.
Sprinkle himself is a graduate of Montana State (2000) and was a top player for the Bobcats, setting records for career and single-season 3-pointers and remains eighth on the program’s points leaderboard. He became the head coach of his alma mater in 2019 and in his coaching debut took Montana State into the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum and gave the 17th-ranked Aggies quite the scare, taking USU nearly to the wire in an 81-73 game.