A more detailed look at Eric Henderson as the potential next Gopher Basketball head coach
Eric Henderson has quietly been winning at South Dakota State since taking over the program from TJ Otzelberger for the 2019-20 season.
COACH NAME
Current Position: South Dakota State
Age: 46
Henderson is an Iowa native who played for Greg McDermott at Wayne State. He eventually joined McDermott’s staff at Iowa State for a few years before moving to Wisconsin and coaching high school for five years. He was given the opportunity to be an assistant at North Dakota State before moving south to SDSU where he assisted Otzelberger and then took over in Brookings.
Career Highlights
Henderson has only been a head coach for six seasons after four seasons as an assistant for Otzelberger. But those six seasons have been rather successful. He has won three Summit League regular season titles (one was a tie) and twice he has won the conference tournament.
His 2021-22 Jackrabbits had won 21 straight games, was the best 3-point shooting team in the country and went into the NCAA Tournament as a 13-seed that many were picking to upset Providence in the first round. But their top players struggled from three at the wrong time and Ed Cooley’s Friars sent them home.
Coaching Style
On offense, Henderson’s teams routinely are a very good shooting team. As mentioned, they were the #1 team in the country from behind the arc in 2021-22 and they were 2nd the year before that. Their effective FG% has been in the top 17 nationally in four of his six seasons.
Defensively they seem to focus on defensive rebounding and not putting their opponents on the line. A more conservative defensive approach but the strategy of valuing possessions and not giving anything easy is a winning strategy. The Jackrabbits have finished top four nationally twice in defensive rebounding over his tenure and were #1 this year.
Reason for Optimism
I do love a coach with a system, this should be no secret by now. Henderson has an identity on both sides of the ball and has demonstrated that he can recruit to it and teach it.
Identifying talent, coaching that player, and keeping that player for as long as you can are key attributes of a mid-major coach. Henderson has recruiter players such as Baylor Scheirman and Zeke Mayo. Both played for 3 seasons at SDSU before transferring up and in the case of Scheierman, eventually getting drafted. Scheierman was the 2022 Summit League Player of the Year before transferring to Creighton. And two years later Mayo was the 2024 player of the year and then transferred to Kansas for his final season. When you’re at a place like South Dakota State, hanging on to players of that caliber is incredibly difficult. Identifying and coaching players to get to that level is reason for optimism.
This year’s team was very young, ranking 334th nationally in “D1 experience” and yet they finished 3rd in their conference, splitting games with the top two teams. Three of his top four scorers are freshmen and one sophomore. If he can keep them in Brookings (and if he’s still coaching there), the Jackrabbits should be a favorite in the Summit once again.
Reason to Pause
Henderson is inexperienced as a head coach and does not have any experience with a Power 5 job. The demands both on and off the court are different, this might be a big leap. You may recall Ben Johnson talking about this during his first season, and he had some exposure to it while being an assistant for the Gophers under Pitino. Henderson hasn’t even had that.
Verdict
Of the coaches that I have profiled, Henderson is the strongest in terms of having a system or style and executing that on both ends of the floor. He has also shown the ability to identify talent and get them to SDSU. Having two conference Player of Year winners in six seasons is nothing to scoff at.
The experience is a little light, but it’s not like we are hiring someone who hasn’t been a D1 head coach. It sounds like if Minnesota is unable to close the deal with Niko Medved, Henderson would be one of the strongest candidates. He’s been winning and I wouldn’t be upset if he were given a shot at Minnesota.