Braswell Protege Hill Joins Basketball Staff at CSUN

Eddie Hill, who played basketball for Bobby Braswell at Cleveland High, was hired Friday as an assistant coach under Braswell at Cal State Northridge.

Hill, 23, spent the past season as a restricted-earnings assistant at University of Portland, helping the Pilots to a West Coast Conference tournament title and their first NCAA tournament berth since 1959.

Hill’s hiring had been rumored since Braswell took over the Northridge program in May. Hill was runner-up two years ago for a restricted-earnings position at Oregon, where Braswell was the top assistant.

“Probably, his junior year or sophomore year in college, he expressed to me that one day he would like to get into coaching,” Braswell said. “And I said if I had a head job at the time when he had his degree that I would hire him. And things worked out very well.”

Said Hill, who Monday will officially join Mike Johnson as one of Northridge’s full-time assistants: “I was real excited for [Braswell] when he got the job, then I thought, this might be a good situation for me too.”

After playing at Cleveland for 2 1/2 seasons--1 1/2 under Braswell--Hill graduated in 1990 and moved on to Washington State, where he was a starter two of the four years he played.

“I think our players can look at him and see a guy who’s been at the upper level of college basketball and had a successful career,” Braswell said.

After Hill was turned down for the assistant job at Oregon, he worked for a year in counseling before he was hired at Portland. The Pilots were 19-11, losing to Villanova in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Hill is looking forward to returning to the tournament with the Matadors, who, since they have joined the Big Sky Conference, will have the opportunity to earn an automatic bid for the first time since the school moved to Division I in 1990.

“It’s . . . an opportunity for me to help build something Coach Braswell has dreamed about,” Hill said.