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Tennessee Basketball assistant coach Rod Clark leaving Vols for Indiana

IMG_3593by:Grant Ramey•04/30/25•

GrantRamey

Tennessee assistant coach Rod Clark during a game at Thompson-Boling Arena (Tennessee Athletics)
Tennessee assistant coach Rod Clark during a game at Thompson-Boling Arena (Tennessee Athletics)

New Indiana head coach Darian DeVries is hiring away Tennessee Basketball assistant coach Rod Clark. Clark has been on staff at Tennessee the last four years, playing a pivotal role for the Vols in recruiting and player development.

Clark, 32, was the primary recruiter for two of Tennessee’s biggest stars over the last two season in transfers Chaz Lanier and Dalton Knecht. He was also the primary recruiter Tobe Awaka, BJ Edwards, JP Estrella and Amari Evans.

Clark and former Tennessee associate head coach Mike Schwartz were responsible for getting Zeigler to Tennessee.

Michigan attempted to hire Clark away from Tennessee a year ago, but he opted to stay with the Vols.

Rod Clark was hired by Rick Barnes in April 2021

Clark was hired by Rick Barnes in 2021 alongside current Tennessee associate head coach Justin Gainey. Clark and Gainey were hired after Kim English left to become head coach at George Mason and Desmond Oliver left to become head coach at East Tennessee State.

“We had an opportunity to be very selective in making this hire,” Barnes said while announcing Clark’s hire in 2021, “and I couldn’t be more excited about adding Rod to our staff.”

Clark leaving for Indiana is the first change on the Tennessee coaching staff since Schwartz left to become head coach at East Carolina. Schwartz was replaced by Gregg Polinsky, who was promoted from a volunteer analyst position.

Five former Rick Barnes assistants at Tennessee have been hired as head coaches

Gainey was promoted to associate head coach in 2022, after Schwartz left to become the new head coach at East Carolina. The Vols are 119-35 over the last four seasons, with Gainey and Clark on staff, going to a Sweet Sixteen and back-to-back Elite Eights.

Multiple former Tennessee assistant coaches from the Barnes era to leave and become head coaches include Chris Ogden at Texas Arlington and Rob Lanier at Georgia State. 

Ogden is the only coach that left for another job as an assistant coach, joining Chris Beard’s staff at Texas Tech in 2016, after one season at Tennessee. He was later hired by UT Arlington in 2018, then returned to the University of Texas, where he played for Barnes from 1999 to 2003, to become an assistant coach and general manager for the Longhorns. 

Lanier spent two seasons at Georgia State before being hired at SMU. He just finished his first season as the head coach at Rice.   

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