Tention Ready for the Chance

Rodney Tention said there is one main reason why Kevin O’Neill, Jessie Evans and Jay John have been able to leave Lute Olson’s University of Arizona staff to lead teams of their own.

After being introduced Tuesday as Loyola Marymount’s new coach, Tention said landing his first Division I head coaching job wasn’t just about being a part of the Wildcats’ run of success for the last eight years.

“He wants us to think like head coaches from the day we get on his staff,” Tention said of Olson. “He puts us in a situation where we run our own practice. We meet every day as a staff and talk about what we’re going to do, but he doesn’t tell us how to get it done.

“He doesn’t want guys who are just going to sit on their hands.”

And so Tention, 41, was off and running after arriving at Loyola Marymount after a stop in Tucson on the way back from the Final Four in St. Louis. A former point guard and captain at the University of San Francisco in the late 1980s, he agreed to a four-year contract Friday.

Tention follows a well-beaten path from Tucson. O’Neill, who coached at three colleges, is an assistant with the Indiana Pacers; Evans is coach at San Francisco, and John guides Oregon State.

Loyola finished 11-17 last season and was last in the West Coast Conference at 3-11. But the Lions lose only one senior, point guard Charles Brown.

“I’m looking forward to having those juniors and seniors,” Tention said. “I want those kids to go out on top, so I’m going to ask a little bit more from them and demand a little bit more.”

Tention replaces Steve Aggers, who was fired March 9 after five seasons. Loyola Athletic Director Bill Husak said part of the reason why Aggers was fired, despite two years remaining on his contract, was that the Lions often faded in WCC play after promising starts.

He said he concluded that the team wasn’t responding to Aggers after a first-round WCC tournament game March 4 against rival Pepperdine. The Lions lost, 91-79, after leading by 12 at halftime.

“Steve did a great job for us, taking over a program that was arguably the worst in the country,” Husak said. “He built the ship and got passengers on that ship and set it out toward the harbor. [But] I saw that ship going toward the rocks instead of into open water.”

Brian Priebe, LMU’s interim coach since Aggers was let go, will remain on the staff.

Tention said he understood that there are higher expectations for a program with one winning season in the last nine.

“We don’t want to peak in December,” he said. “We want to start peaking and [be] playing our best in February and early March.”