March 19, 2019
Johnny Jones is already making an impact his first year as head coach for the TSU men’s basketball team.
Following Mike Davis, Jones was announced as head coach by TSU on June 25, 2018 and since then, Jones and the team has received a lot of success.
Prior to the start of the season Jones talked about his excitement about coaching for TSU.
“I couldn’t be more excited, I think it’s a tremendous opportunity,” Jones said, “It’s a program that I’m really familiar with because of Coach Davis and his background and our relationship and friendship over the years.”
Jones speaks more about coming into TSU’s basketball program.
“To come into a program that has had success and trying to take it to new heights, it’s exciting and I certainly welcome the challenge with open arms.”
As the conference season came to an end, TSU led SWAC in scoring averaging 79.8 points per game and also dominated in rebounds. The tigers were able to secure the No. 2 seed 14-4 in the conference with Prairie View A&M taking No. 1 17-1.
The tigers also went on an 11-game winning streak while one tiger received SWAC player of the week, 4 weeks in a row and he later received SWAC player of the Year along with other accolades.
It became a norm for many of the players to score in double digits per game and have numerous double- double performances.
In addition to all the success at TSU, Jones impact in college basketball did not start at TSU.
As a head coach, Jones has 17 seasons and 33 years of Division 1 coaching experience prior to TSU. Jones has also been intertwined with many NBA stars and Hall of Famers and even played a part of the development of two No 1 NBA Draft picks.
Jones’s head coaching career began at North Texas where he coached for 11 seasons starting in 2001 and ending 2012. That was after coaching as an interim head coach at University of Memphis for a year and serving as their assistant coach for two years prior.
While Jones worked as North Texas’s head coach, he was able to take the Mean Green to the post season tournaments for their first time in over 19 seasons.
Jones talks about taking over North Texas’s basketball program as head coach.
“It was taking over a program that was at the bottom, they were averaging 5 wins a year over a 4-year period,” Jones said, “So it was a job you were taking over that you had to build from the ground up.”
Throughout his North Texas Career, Jones led the team to two NCAA tournaments berths and five top-three conference finishes. He also coached the Mean Green to five-straight 20-win seasons from 2007–11.
Moving on from North Texas, Jones was able to return to his alma mater LSU as head coach in 2012 where he received even more success.
Before his success at as head coach, Jones had already made a mark at LSU. Jones played in the 1981 Final Four as a freshman.
After playing all 4 seasons for LSU, Jones was able to land his job as assistant coach for 13 seasons (1984-97) under his former coach Dale Brown and the pair was able to return to the 1986 Final Four.
Jones talks about getting hired by Dale Brown.
“He hired me right away, as soon as I finished playing and putting my jersey up and finished school there, he hired me as a full-time assistant.”
That’s where Jones met and helped coached Hall of Famer and 1992 No.1 NBA draft pick Shaquille O Neal.
Jones elaborates on witnessing Shaq’s impact on the game of basketball after LSU.
“Just to see Shaquille grow to be the person that he was and impact the game the way that he did was obviously special.”
Shaq wasn’t the only No.1 NBA Draft pick that Jones coached at LSU. Not too long after returning as LSU’s head coach in 2012, Jones had another NBA superstar, Ben Simmons in his hands.
Jones talks about the 2016 No.1 NBA draft pick.
“He came in being associated with the top 3 or top 5 kids in the country and to see him to be elevated to the No.1 player taken in the draft we were really excited about that.”
Jones won 90 games in his five years as the head coach at LSU, the most of any head coach at LSU in their first five years. He was the fourth-winningest coach in LSU history.
After his time at LSU, Jones worked as Nevada Wolf Pack’s associate head coach and soon made his way to TSU.
Jones did not come to TSU alone. He is known for his recruiting and he brought three players with him with one being his son John Jones coming from Nevada.
Point guard Jalyn Patterson and forward Jeremy Combs both came from LSU with Combs coincidently attended North Texas before LSU.
Patterson had many double figure performances throughout the season and Combs was able to swipe up SWAC player and New Comer of the Year. Combs also received national honors (Lou Henson P-O-W Award) as he ranked nationally as one of the top players in rebounding.
Jones and the tigers hope to continue their regular season success into the post season.
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