ASU Mid-South introduces Ben Tanoff as Greyhounds head coach

ASU Mid-South hired Ben Tanoff on July 7 to lead a Greyhounds men’s program that finished 27-8, went 15-3 in conference play and averaged 90.7 points a game. The hire came after a spring that included an 86-69 win over North Central Missouri College in West Memphis to claim the Central Plains District Championship and a berth in the NJCAA Division II National Tournament in Danville, Illinois.

Tanoff arrives from Ellsworth Community College in Iowa, where he spent four seasons as associate head coach. Ellsworth won the 2024 Region XI championship, reached its first NJCAA Division II Final Four in 47 years and finished national runner-up in 2025. Those Ellsworth teams produced two NJCAA All-Americans, 15 all-region players, 34 scholarship signees to four-year schools, six All-Academic team members, a 100 percent graduation rate and a 3.46 team GPA in 2024-25.

Athletic director Jeremy Reece said Tanoff’s experience and commitment to student-athlete development made him a strong fit, and the school identified defense, player development and academic excellence as part of the profile it wants him to install. Tanoff has built that background across college basketball, from Presbyterian College to Georgia Tech, where he served as director of recruiting under Josh Pastner during the Yellow Jackets’ first ACC championship since 1993 and NCAA Tournament appearance in that span.

Before moving into college basketball, he coached and taught mathematics at Lowcountry Preparatory School in South Carolina, and in 2022 he guided the USA Basketball Under-18 Boys 3-on-3 team to gold at the 21st Maccabi Games in Israel.

The Greyhounds won the Region 2 championship on February 28 by beating North Arkansas College 86-80, then outlasted Phillips Community College-UA 74-68 in the semifinal a day earlier. Cody Hastings left after seven seasons to take the Connors State job.