Former Hawaii interim head coach Benjy Taylor is back in Division I basketball as an assistant coach at Southeast Missouri State, the Ohio Valley Conference school announced Thursday.

After being passed over for the permanent UH job last spring, Taylor was briefly out of coaching and worked for a local car dealership. UH went 22-13 and reached the Big West tournament championship game last season under Taylor, who took over before the 2014-15 season when Gib Arnold was fired.

SMSU is 3-16 overall and 0-6 in conference play this season.

“To find someone with his résumé during a non-traditional hiring period is an enormous benefit to our program,” Redhawks coach Rick Ray said in an SMSU release. “We have been working understaffed for months now and Benjy will allow us to get a jump on recruiting quality student-athletes with his years of contacts and connections.”