New Mexico State basketball coach Jason Hooten names Zach Settembre as assistant coach
New Mexico State men's basketball coach Jason Hooten announced the first hire to his coaching staff.
Hooten hired assistant coach Zach Settembre, a 14-year coaching veteran and the first member of Hooten's Aggie staff.
"We are extremely excited to have Zach join our Aggie family," Hooten said. "Zach is a big-time worker and has a huge passion for helping student-athletes with every aspect of their lives. Coach Settembre is the perfect person to help build our culture."
Settembre makes his way to Las Cruces after spending one season as an assistant coach under Billy Gillispie at WAC institution Tarleton. In his lone year in Stephenville, Texas, Settembre helped lead the Texans to 17 wins, their highest win total since transitioning to the Division I level.
Ahead of his time with Tarleton, Settembre spent one year as an assistant coach at Coastal Carolina. Settembre's stop prior to Coastal Carolina came at Tallahassee Community College where he was the head coach from 2019 to 2021 and led TCC to an impressive 46-9 overall record and back-to-back Panhandle Conference Championships during the two-year stint. Settembre also garnered Panhandle Conference Coach of the Year honors in both years as the leader in Tallahassee.
Settembre got his first introduction into the DI game when he was a student manager under legendary head coach Jim Boeheim at Syracuse. Following his college graduation in 2012, Settembre returned home to Kentucky and worked as a freshman head boys basketball coach at Iroquois High School (2012-13) and Ballard High School (2013-14). His first collegiate assignment came in the following years at Kentucky Wesleyan College where he served as an assistant under Happy Osborne.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: New Mexico State basketball coach Jason Hooten names Zach Settembre as assistant coach
