Illinois State Introduces Ryan Pedon as Head Coach in Public Event

NORMAL, Ill. - On Monday morning, Illinois State Director of Athletics Kyle Brennan introduced Ryan Pedon as the men's basketball program's 20th head coach in a press conference inside Redbird Arena.

To watch the full video, check out the ESPN+ replay by clicking the link HERE. 

Pedon has spent the last five seasons at Ohio State after joining the staff in the summer of 2017. In his time with the Buckeyes, OSU has a record of 106-53 with an NCAA tournament berth during each of his seasons in Columbus, with two trips to the NCAA second round. 

In 2020, Pedon joined Coaches 4 Change (C4C), an organization founded by college basketball coaches who are dedicated to help their student-athletes, their campus, and their communities. The mission of C4C is to provide a platform that engages, educates, empowers, and evolves the collegiate student-athlete on issues of social injustices, systemic racism, and the power of voting in the endless pursuit of equality.

He made the transition to Columbus alongside head coach Chris Holtmann from Butler, where he had helped the Bulldogs tally a 47-20 record in two seasons with two NCAA Tournament berths in Indianapolis. Prior to joining the Bulldogs he spent two seasons at Illinois as an assistant to the head coach for former Illini head coach John Groce. In his two seasons in Champaign the Illini twice advanced to the NIT. He has also spent time as an assistant coach at Toledo (2010-13) and Miami (Ohio) (2005-10), was director of basketball operations at Kent State from 2002-05 and was a graduate assistant at Miami (Ohio) from 2000-2002.

Pedon played college basketball at the College of Wooster, where he was a three-year letterwinner and helped the Fighting Scots to three NCAA Tournaments and three North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) regular-season championships. In 2000, he won Wooster's prestigious "Bear Award".

He received his bachelor's degree in communications from Wooster in 2000 and a master's degree in sport organization from Miami (Ohio) in 2002. He and his wife Stephanie have a son, Maddox.

Over the coming weeks, the @Redbird_MBB twitter account will be highlighting different portions of his day.