UT Martin hires Ryan Ridder as new men’s basketball coach

MARTIN, Tenn. — UT Martin has hired Ryan Ridder as the Skyhawks’ new men’s basketball coach.

Athletic director Kurt McGuffin announced the hiring Tuesday, and Ridder will be introduced next week on campus.

Ridder, 36, spent the past four seasons at Bethune-Cookman in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. He had a 64.6% winning percentage in league play and won the 2017-18 MEAC regular season title. He had 48 wins at Bethune-Cookman before the school opted out of all sports for the 2020-21 seasons.

He won the Joe B. Hall Award in 2018 after leading Bethune-Cookeman to its second MEAC regular season title in its 38-year history.

The native of Lexington, Kentucky, has a 143-73 record as a head coach including four seasons at Daytona State College.

He played at the College of Wooster before finishing his playing career under his father, Steve, in NAIA Division II. Ridder worked as an assistant at North Raleigh Christian in North Carolina in 2008 and became a volunteer assistant for his father starting in 2009-10.

Ridder started in Division I with three seasons as an assistant at Campbell.


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