Eastern is looking north for the first of its three men’s basketball coaching interviews.

The Panthers athletic department announced Tuesday that Wisconsin assistant Gary Close will be in Charleston on a day-long interview today.

Close has been an assistant for 18 years with stints at Stanford, Iowa and Wisconsin.

“His experiences at high-quality institutions under a couple very good coaches impressed us,” said Rich McDuffie, director of athletics.

At Iowa from 1987-99, Close was under the tuteledge of Tom Davis and was involved with nine NCAA Tournament teams along with a pair of NIT bids.

Known as the “Shot Doctor,” Close is highly regarded for this ability to coach shooting as his Hawkeye teams shot better than 48 percent five times during his period in Iowa.

When the Hawkeyes hired Steve Alford, Close was sent packing and was forced to take an alternate route back to coaching.

For one year, Close took a job as the director of Basketball Operations for Championship Productions in Ames, Iowa. The company is an independent corporation that sells instructional videos and equipment to schools nationwide.

McDuffie stated that he, along with the search committee, was not concerned about his year away from the coaching profession.

“He displayed the leadership qualities that we were looking for to turn this program around,” McDuffie said. “No, that was not discussed at all.”

Close got back into the game by taking the head coaching position at Regina High School in Iowa for three years before accepting the assistant position under Bo Ryan at Wisconsin.

In his two seasons as a Badger, he has tallied a record of 50-16 with Wisconsin making two NCAA Tournament appearances, including this season’s Elite Eight loss to national champion North Carolina.

Close’s ability to recruit is mainly based in the Midwest even though the career assistant is originally from New Jersey.

“We feel like anybody can be successful in that regard, and he can recruit across the country,” McDuffie said.

Close exemplifies what the search committee requires for succeeding off the court, as Wisconsin is one of the leading academic institutions in the Big Ten.

The Badgers’ most recent NCAA four-year graduation rate for men’s basketball was 73 percent, and Wisconsin had an Academic Progress Report score of 962 (0-to-1000 scale) compared to Eastern’s 923 and the national average of 906.

“These are the kinds of qualities that we are looking for in regards to representing us on the floor and in the classroom,” McDuffie said.

The other two candidates will be interviewed Thursday and Friday.