BATON ROUGE – LSU head men's basketball coach, Will Wade, has named Tony Benford to serve as assistant coach for the 2017-2018 season.

Benford comes to LSU after serving as the head coach at the University of North Texas and a career of more than 25 years in NCAA Division 1 basketball.

"Tony is the next step in our efforts to build a winning basketball program that all LSU fans can be proud of. His experience as both a head coach and long-time assistant on the recruiting trail will help us in our stated mission to recruit the best players that want to come to LSU and make LSU a consistent winner," wade said.

Benford served as the assistant and later as the associate head coach at Marquette. He also served as an assistant at New Mexico, Arizona State and Nebraska.

During that time, he was dubbed by Basketball Times, Fox Sports and Hoop Scoop as one of the country's top assistant coaches in Division I basketball.
He has been part of teams that made 14 post-season appearances and has recruited and coached five NBA first-round draft picks: Ike Diogu, Charles Smith, Kenny Thomas Lazar Hayward and Jimmy Butler.

"I think Coach Wade is one of the best young coaches in the country and having the opportunity to work with him and restore the great tradition here at LSU is something I am really looking forward to," Benford said.