City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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UPDATE (5/24, 4:45 PM): The University of Delaware has officially announced that Martin Ingelsby will be the next men's basketball head coach. Ingelsby will be introduced on Wednesday morning at an 11 AM press conference at the Bob Carpenter Center.

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ORIGINAL STORY: It appears as if the University of Delaware's two-month search for a men's basketball head coach has finally come to an end.

According to multiple reports -- first coming from CBS Sports' Gary Parrish and later added onto by CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein and Kevin Tresolini of the Wilmington (Del.) News-Journal -- Berwyn native, Archbishop Carroll product and Notre Dame assistant Martin Ingelsby will take over the Blue Hens' program later this week.

The 1997 Markward Award and Gatorade State Player of the Year winner, Ingelsby had a standout four-year career at Notre Dame, starting at point guard for three seasons for the Fighting Irish. As a senior under first-year head coach Mike Brey in 2000-01, Ingelsby helped lead Notre Dame into the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

He returned to his alma mater in 2003, spending six years as the program's coordinator of basketball operations before he was elevated to an assistant coaching position in the summer of 2009.

At Delaware, where Brey won 99 games and took the Blue Hens to two NCAA Tournaments in five seasons before taking the Notre Dame job, Ingelsby will have quite a rebuilding project on his hands.

The Blue Hens currently just have four scholarship players projected to be on the 2016-17 roster, after five players requested releases following the firing of head coach Monte Ross in late March after a 7-23 season. Six total players left the program this offseason; starting guard Kory Holden, now at South Carolina, announced his intent to transfer a few days before Ross' firing.

Chivarsky Corbett (Texas-San Antonio) is the only one of the other five who has found a new program; Cazmon Hayes, Eric Carter, Skye Johnson and Maurice Jeffers could all theoretically return.

A large part of the delay in the hiring was because at the time of Ross' firing, the school was under the regime of an interm president as well as athletics director. Incoming president Dennis Assanis takes office on July 1, and new AD Christine Rawak was only introduced back on May 13.

CoBL will have more on this story as it develops