IU Pitching Coach Promoted To Associate Head Coach
Kyle Bunn, who spent the last two seasons as Indiana baseball's pitching coach, was promoted to Associate Head Coach, it was announced by head coach Chris Lemonis on Monday.
Bunn is beginning his third year with Indiana and 15th season as a Division I college baseball coach. He's had 54 of his pitchers continue on to play professional baseball.
“Kyle is very deserving of being named Associate Head Coach,” Lemonis said in a team release. “He has shown the ability to guide and develop a pitching staff on the national level. We have had eight pitchers who have been drafted and or signed on with MLB organizations in the past two years and the 2016 pitching staff finished as the 11th best team ERA in the country. He is a tireless recruiter who lives the game of baseball and has prepared himself to be a head coach in the very near future.”
Lemonis and Bunn have worked together for more than two decades.
“I feel very honored and fortunate to have been named the Associate Head Coach for IU’s baseball program,” said Bunn. “My family and I have had a relationship for over 20 years with Coach Lemonis as a player, a mentor and currently a boss. He is not only a great man but has been and still is an awesome example to follow in my journey through college baseball. I look forward to the seasons ahead for Indiana Baseball, and I am extremely grateful to be a part of it each day as we continue to work to ‘dogpile’ and be a champion.”
Under Bunn's guidance, the 2016 pitching staff ranked second in the country in walks allowed per nine innings (2.31), fifth in WHIP (1.15) and 11th in ERA (3.09). Kyle Hart led the way en route to being named First Team All-Big Ten with Caleb Baragar, Jake Kelzer and Evan Bell all going from IU's staff into Major League Baseball organizations.
Kyle Cheesebrough (assistant coach/recruiting coordinator) and Matt Reida (assistant coach) round out the staff. Roger Rodeheaver is the Director of Baseball Operations.
Former Hoosier Nick Ramos finds a new home
Nick Ramos, who did not play for Indiana last season for reasons unspecified by Lemonis, is apparently spending his last season of eligibility with Arizona State.
Because Ramos sat out all of last year, he is immediately eligible to play. The move reunites him with former IU head coach Tracy Smith.
