As we part with long time Men’s Basketball Head Coach Tavaras Hardy, the Loyola coaching staff and community prepares to welcome a returning Greyhound staff member to the position. This past weekend, Assistant Vice President and Director of Athletics Donna M. Woodruff announced that Josh Loeffler will become the team’s new head coach, making him the twenty-second person to hold the position.
Woodruff expressed excitement about having Loeffler as the team’s head coach.
She said, “Josh has been extremely successful as a head coach at outstanding academic institutions, and he has a deep knowledge of the Patriot League and what it takes to be successful in our conference.”
She went on to discuss how his mindset as a coach fits in with Loyola’s Cura Personalis values, as he is someone who is invested in helping players achieve success both in the gym and out on campus.
Loeffler shares Woodruff’s positive outlook on his entry to the position.
Loeffler said, “Loyola is a university that I have deep admiration and respect for, and I am thrilled to be its next head Men’s Basketball coach.”
He said, “I am excited to get into the gym with the team and begin the process of producing a team that will represent Loyola on and off the court.”
According to the Loyola Greyhounds site, Loeffler is no stranger to Charles Street or the Patriot league, as he was previously an assistant coach for the Greyhounds from 2013-2017. He was also the head coach at Johns Hopkins University from 2017-2023. In his time at Hopkins, Loeffler led the Blue Jays to a 114-27 record over 6 years. Throughout his career, Loeffler holds a 160-40 record, winning 80 percent of his collegiate games. After coaching at Hopkins, he was most recently an assistant coach at the University of Cincinnati for their 2023-24 season.
Loeffler’s coaching over Hopkin’s Men’s Basketball brought immediate success to their team. With him, they saw an eight-win increase, and many of the players he coached were recognized by the league according to the Loyola Greyhounds site. Loeffler coached three players who were Centennial Conference Players of the Year, two who were Defensive Players of the Year, a league Rookie of the Year, and 12 who were all-conference honorees while at Hopkins.
According to the Baltimore Sun, Loeffler was not planning to leave his position at Cincinnati in such a short time, but is looking forward to being back in Baltimore.
Loeffler said, “I wasn’t planning on this so soon, and I wasn’t going to take any job… It would take something really special for me to leave Cincinnati, and Baltimore is as [special] as the house I grew up in.”
He said, “It’s right near my family. My daughters haven’t lived anywhere else for the first 11 or 10 years of their lives. So the opportunity to come back to Loyola in that place with people that I really admire and enjoy working with, it was just an opportunity that was too good to pass up.”
Loeffler will be formally welcomed to the Loyola community with an upcoming welcome reception. More details regarding this will be forthcoming at LoyolaGreyhounds.com.
