Rick Karius joined South Dakota’s men’s basketball staff for the 2016-17 season as the Director of Basketball Operations having spent the previous two years with the same title at Green Bay and Bradley.
In his first season with South Dakota, the Coyotes won the Summit League regular season championship for the first time in program history with a 12-4 record and posted a 22-12 overall record.
Karius was a four-year letter winner at Wisconsin-La Crosse where he earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting in 2009. He proceeded to Southwest Minnesota State where he served as an assistant coach for the Mustangs men’s team. A year later he was the head assistant at UW-Superior then returned to La-Crosse in 2011 to serve in the same capacity.
Karius was hired as the video coordinator at Green Bay in 2013 for coach Brian Wardle. He switched to the operations role for year two before following Wardle to Bradley ahead of the 2015-16 season.
While at Green Bay, Karius was on a staff that advanced to the National Invitational Tournament two years in a row. He has also be on the staff for the 50th pick of the 2014 NBA Draft, Alec Brown, along with Keifer Sykes, who has played in the NBA G League.
Karius is a native of Chilton, Wisconsin, which rests less than an hour from Green Bay. He earned his master’s degree in business administration from Southwest Minnesota State in 2014.
