MURRAY, KY — Murray State men’s basketball is making a change in its front office as General Manager Ernie Kuyper is leaving the program to pursue other opportunities.<\/p>\n
Kuyper was brought to Murray State by head coach Ryan Miller last year to serve as the program’s first general manager. Rashon Burno, who was recently hired as the Racers’ President of Basketball Operations, will assume most of Kuyper’s responsibilities.<\/p>\n
For Miller, Kuyper’s departure is a difficult one personally, but it was also something he understood could eventually happen.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, it hurts, you know, my relationship with Ernie goes back to a lifelong relationship,” Miller said. “I knew long term, this wasn’t probably his dream to be a GM or coach college basketball, but his experiences in the grassroots programs, experiences in Memphis, my experience in a trusting relationship with him, that goes lifelong, it was important for me to have him here year one.”<\/p>\n
Kuyper’s one season in Murray came as the Racers established themselves in the Missouri Valley Conference under Miller. Murray State won 20 games, went 12-8 in league play and finished tied for third in the MVC before earning an NIT appearance.<\/p>\n
Miller believes Kuyper’s work helped put the program in position to build on that first season.<\/p>\n
“He helped us grab a strong foundation, but he also helped us get some carryover for year two by helping us secure a really strong roster for year two,” Miller said.<\/p>\n
With Burno now taking on a larger role, Miller said the opportunity to bring in someone with his background was difficult to pass up.<\/p>\n
“I kind of knew that was coming a little bit. I didn’t know when for sure, but when Rashon was available with his experiences in player personnel, his experiences coaching at a high level, his recommendation for Billy Donovan, his time at Florida, and Danny and Bobby Hurley, was too good to pass up,” Miller said.<\/p>\n
While Kuyper’s time as the Racers’ GM is over, Miller said his impact on the foundation of the program will remain.<\/p>\n
Murray State enters its second season under Miller with Burno now taking on a larger role in the program’s basketball operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MURRAY, KY — Murray State men’s basketball is making a change in its front office as General Manager…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,707,724,4762,33366,85],"class_list":["post-862729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-college","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-msu","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}