Riley named EWU men's basketball coach

CHENEY – Eastern Washington promoted associate head coach David Riley to fill the vacancy left when Shantay Legans was hired away by the University of Portland on March 22. The 2021-22 season will be Riley's 11th in Eastern's program and his eighth as a coach.

"I am honored and excited about being named the next head coach of Eastern Washington University," Riley in a news release. "The past 10 years at EWU have been an incredible journey and I am grateful to all the current and former players who helped put me in this position."

His former boss, Legans, was a big fan of Riley's promotion.

"It makes me feel good that I'm leaving this place and then Dave (Riley) is going to take over and do a great job; I'm excited about it," he predicted in a March 24 interview with the Cheney Free Press. "If Eastern wants to be good they better hire Dave Riley."

One of Riley's first tasks will be to attempt to plug the transfer portal hole that opened in Cheney after news of Legans' departure. So far Jacob Davison, Mike Meadows, Tyler Robertson and the Groves brothers have entered into the pool.

Riley is a 2011 graduate of Whitworth University and two years later received his master's degree from EWU. He played at Whitworth for Jim Hayford, then was director of basketball operations at EWU when Hayford took over as Eastern's head coach in 2011. He then served three seasons as an assistant for Hayford, and the last four under Legans.

Riley's uncle Mike has been head football coach at Nebraska, Oregon State, the San Diego Chargers and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League.

– Paul Delaney is a retired former Free Press Publishing reporter and can be reached at pauldelaney53@comcast.net.