Texas A&M men’s basketball associate head coach Rick Stansbury is leaving Texas A&M to take the head coaching job at Western Kentucky University.

In two-seasons under A&M head coach Billy Kennedy, Stansbury served as the associate head coach and was essential in signing a consensus top-10 recruiting class in 2015. In this past season, A&M won 28 games, the most in school history and a shared regular-season title with Kentucky. The Aggies made their deepest tournament run by advancing to the Sweet 16 for the third time in A&M history.

This is not Stansbury’s first head coaching job.

Before joining A&M in 2014 he spent 22 years at Mississippi State, the final 14 of which he was its head coach. During his tenure he led the Bulldogs to a 293-166 record, one regular-season SEC title, two tournament titles and six NCAA tournament appearances before retiring in 2012 as the winningest coach in school history. 

The Bulldogs only missed the NCAA tournament or NIT three times in his 14 years as head coach. His victories at Mississippi State are the ninth-most in SEC history, and he was awarded Coach of the Year by the Associated Press in 2004. 

The Kentucky native will replace Ray Harper at Western Kentucky, who resigned on March 17 after going 89-64 in four-plus seasons, including two NCAA tournament appearances. Harper resigned following the suspension of WKU guards Fredrick Edmond, Marlon Hunter and Chris McNeal for an undisclosed violation.

Stansbury has a family connection to Western Kentucky in his great uncle Edgar B. Stansbury, who is in the school’s Hall of Fame for playing three sports and serving as an assistant football coach and athletic director. 

Stansbury will jump straight into the action for the Hilltoppers with signing beginning April 13.