Florida’s assistant coaching search that lasted for what seemed like forever finally came to a close on Friday night as Akeem Miskdeen was said to be hired by the Gators.
Much like the hire of Erik Pastrana who was hired the week prior, it was a name that started floating around behind the scenes before becoming a reality shortly after.
Miskdeen was most recently at Florida Atlantic where he coached under former Florida assistant Dusty May. This is something he shares in common with Erik Pastrana, who also coached under May at FAU. Prior to FAU he was at Kent State, and before that, Hampton. At Hampton Miskdeen had the title of associate head coach, and he was also the recruiting coordinator. At Kent State and Florida Atlantic he was known as a developer of the guards, and there were steps taken by that position group in Miskdeen’s tenure at both stops.
The hire reads as a bit of an interesting one due to the fact Miskeen hasn’t yet coached at the high major level. However, he is very well respected by people who know him, and he is known as a very intelligent coach and an extremely hard worker who covers a lot of ground in recruiting.
For a while it was thought that Virginia Tech’s Christian Webster would be taking the job, but ultimately it didn’t end up working out. This was also said to be the case with Stanford’s Adam Cohen, who I heard would only take the position at Florida if he was given the associate title, something Mike White was not willing to take off of Al Pinkins. I have heard that other names like Andy Kennedy (currently the head coach at UAB after a long stint at Ole Miss, including when White was an assistant there), Chris Acker (SDSU), Brett Nelson (Holy Cross) and Robert Ehsan (formerly at UAB, now at Stanford) also declined, though I can’t be 100% sure and have heard some contrary information to those claims.
Miskdeen was likely not at the top of Florida’s list to start the process, but they will still be happy to bring in a coach that is likely a good personality fit and someone who will want to stick it out in Gainesville for a while.
The hire also comes just in time for a key date in the recruiting calendar, June 1st when things start to open up. It’s unknown whether Miskdeen will be able to hit the road that quickly, but certainly the Gators felt a bit of a rush to make a hire here and they’ll be looking to get him up to speed as soon as possible so he can get on recruiting.