Northern Colorado coach B.J. Hill announced Thursday, May 13, 2010, the addition of Ry Martin to the Bears men's basketball coaching staff.

Martin came to Greeley with an impressive resume after holding various assistant coaching positions in the Midwest -- he most recently had spent two years as a graduate assistant at UMKC -- and after a standout playing career at Coffeyville (Kan.) Community College and later at Wichita State, where he was a member of the Shockers' 2006 NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 team.

Martin played for Hill from 2003 to 2005, when Hill was an assistant coach at Coffeyville, and one of his assistant coaches at Wichita State was former Northern Colorado head coach Tad Boyle.

Martin joined Northern Colorado after spending two seasons with the Kangaroos and after just one season with the Bears he was selected in summer 2011 to attend the prestigious Villa 6 Consortium, a one-of-a-kind career-development opportunity for the best and brightest of the emerging stars on the collegiate basketball landscape.

The one day Villa 6 program, in its third year and patterned after the hugely successful Villa 7 program, was aimed at the career-oriented assistant with a keen eye on professional development. Participants heard from coaches, athletic directors and members of the media at The Palazzo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev.

Martin joined UMKC after spending the 2007-08 season as an assistant coach at Coffeyville, where he helped lead the Ravens to a 24-9 overall record that year in southern Kansas, while assisting in team practices and game-day coaching responsibilities. He also worked closely with the staff in scouting and the recruitment of student-athletes.

His coaching career began as soon as his playing career ended with the Shockers. He served as an intern at WSU in 2007 before coaching at Hoops Mountain Central in Wichita that summer. There, he worked closely with post players, and eight of those players went on to play collegiate basketball.

In summer 2008, Martin coached the KC Pump-n-Run AAU team, which has placed numerous players on top-tier collegiate programs, including Brady Morningstar (Kansas), Travis Releford (Kansas), Michael Dixon (Missouri) and Dominique Morrison (Oral Roberts).

"I’m extremely excited to welcome a guy like Ryan,” Hill said. “He’s going to be a great addition to our staff. It’s kind of a unique situation, because I recruited and coached Ryan, so he obviously knows me. But the thing that excites me about him is his work ethic, his energy and the fact that he knows our system already.

“He's going to step right in and do great things for us. The guys are really going to gravitate toward him because he’s got a tremendous personality, and he’s going to be a tremendous asset to our program while he’s representing us in the community and on the recruiting trail.”

During his playing days at Wichita State, Martin helped lead the Shockers to a 43-23 overall record in two seasons on the team. In 2006, he guided WSU to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, as the squad opened the tournament with an 86-66 win over Seton Hall before upsetting Tennessee 80-73. In the Sweet 16 match-up between a pair of Cinderellas, the Shockers fell to George Mason 63-55. Martin's squad finished that season with a 26-9 overall record, which included a 14-4 mark in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Martin, who was named to the 2006 MVC All-Bench Team, appeared in 66 games for WSU, including 32 starts. He averaged 6.5 points and 5.2 rebounds in a Shocker uniform, and he finished his career in Wichita with a .547 (168-307) field-goal percentage.

Before joining the Shockers, Martin was honored as the 2005 Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division Player of the Year after averaging 17.5 points and seven rebounds at Coffeyville (Kan.) Community College. In his two years at the school, including a first year with Hill, Martin scored more than 1,000 points, and he was selected as an all-conference, all-region and JUCO all-America selection. He helped the Ravens post a 55-15 overall record, while placing fifth at the NJCAA Tournament in 2003-04.

As a prep, Martin averaged 19 points and was a second team all-Class 5A selection at Schlagle High School in Kansas City, Kan. He was also a four-year letterwinner in baseball, basketball and football.

Martin graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in sports administration from Wichita State in May 2007, where he finished with a 3.25 cumulative grade-point average.