Northwestern women’s basketball coach Beth Combs took two more steps toward rebuilding the Wildcats’ program Friday.

Combs announced that Lehigh assistant coaches Tempie Brown and Jim Sexton would join her staff.

Lehigh is a member of the Patriot League, as is Colgate, where Combs was head coach from 2001-2004.

“Coming from the Patriot League to the Big Ten is a big jump to make,” Combs said. “But they come from schools like Northwestern that stress the importance of putting in the best at both ends of the floor and in the classroom.”

Combs said Brown and Sexton were her top choices to fill two of the three vacancies on her coaching staff.

“I got to know both of them a little bit when I was at Colgate,” Combs said. “But where we really got to know each other over the years is on the recruiting trail. I have seen them have success in recruiting top-caliber athletes who want to succeed in the classroom as well.”

The trio already has started the process of making new recruiting contacts and rekindling old relationships they developed in the Patriot League, Combs said.

A third assistant will be hired soon, Combs said, and also will be someone who knows how to recruit true student-athletes.

Combs said members of the NU women’s basketball team have had an opportunity in their individual workouts to meet with the new assistant coaches.

“My first impressions of them are that they are very positive and very enthusiastic,” junior Samantha McComb said. “They have been very aggressive with us in the weight room and pushing us to the limits of what we can do. Having some new voices around I think will help us a lot.”

The pair of assistants will have much work to do to resurrect a team that finished with a last place 1-16 Big Ten record last season. The Cats also have only four conference victories in the past four seasons.

Brown will oversee the guards and offense at NU, while Sexton will handle the Cats’ post players and the defensive side of the court.

Both have ties to either the Big Ten or the Chicago area, which will serve as a recruiting tool in the Midwest, Combs said.

Brown graduated in 1990 from Michigan, where she was an All-Big Ten selection and ranks in the top 20 in scoring average, steals and assists.

After working as an assistant at Eastern Michigan, Brown came to Lehigh to oversee the team’s guards and assist with recruiting and strength and conditioning.

Sexton coached at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Ill., for 15 years, where he was St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year three times and won the Illinois Coaches Association’s Division III Coach of the Year in 1993.

Sexton moved on to become an assistant coach at the United States Naval Academy before taking a job as the recruiting coordinator and defensive assistant at Lehigh.

“We have known and respected each other for some time,” Combs said. “We’ve tried to work something out (to coach together) in the past, but it didn’t work out. This will be our first time working together, and I’m really looking forward to it.”