Sports
Former Ohio Assistant Kuwik Finding Success At Dayton
< < Back toThe Dayton Flyers created a lot of buzz over the weekend making their first appearance in the Elite Eight since 1984 and a former Ohio assistant coach played a part in it all.
Longtime Ohio University assistant coach Kevin Kuwik has been an assistant for the Dayton men’s basketball team since 2011, but before being added to the Flyers’ coaching staff, Kuwik had spent time with Ohio State and Butler, among a few smaller colleges earlier in his coaching career.
Kuwik came to Athens with former Ohio head coach Tim O’Shea back in 2001. Kuwik spent the next three seasons serving as a full-time assistant before serving something much more important—our country.
During the 2004-05 season Kuwik took an 18-month leave of absence to serve the 113th Engineer Battalion of the Indiana National Guard in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
In his first year back from deployment, Kuwik helped coach the Bobcats to a 2005 Mid-American Conference tournament championship and a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Kuwik’s time as a Bobcat came to an end after the 2008 season, where he then took the job as the Director of Basketball Operations at Butler under Brad Stevens for one season. The following season, Kuwik joined Thad Matta’s staff as the team’s video coordinator where he stayed for the next two years before becoming a Flyer.
In his third season as a Dayton assistant, Kuwik and the Flyers made one of the great runs of the 2014 tournament.
In Dayton’s opening round matchup, Kuwik and the 11th-seeded Flyers defeated his former team and coaching staff in the 6th-seeded Ohio State Buckeyes.
Before the 62-52 loss to Florida in the Elite Eight, Dayton beat big name programs such as Ohio State, Syracuse and Stanford.