Brian Jones
Brian Jones (born April 22, 1971)
Current position: Assistant men’s basketball coach
Current team: East Tennessee State Buccaneers (Head coach: Brooks Savage)
Current conference: Southern Conference (SoCon)
Teams coached: North Dakota Fighting Hawks, Illinois State Redbirds
North Dakota record^: 190-217 (.467)
Illinois State record: 2-5 (.286)
Overall record^: 192-222 (.464)
Career Accomplishments:
- NCAA National Championships: 0
- NCAA Tournament Appearances: 1 (2017)
- NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen: 0
- NIT Championships: 0
- NIT Appearances: 0
- CIT Appearances: 5 (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016)
- Big Sky Regular Season Champion: 1 (2017)
- Big Sky Tournament Champion: 1 (2017)
- Great West Tournament Champion: 2 (2011, 2012)
Awards:
- Big Sky Coach of the Year: 1 (2017)
Coaching Career (head coach, unless noted):
| 2023-present | East Tennessee State (asst) |
| 2022-2023 | Bradley (asst) |
| 2022 | Illinois State (interim HC) |
| 2019-2022 | Illinois State (assoc. HC) |
| 2006-2019 | North Dakota |
| 1999-2006 | Iowa (asst) |
| 1998-1999 | Southwest Missouri State (asst) |
| 1996-1998 | Nebraska-Omaha (asst) |
Brian Jones Facts
- Brian Jones
- Born April 22, 1971
- Hometown: Rock Island, Illinois
- Alma Mater: University of Northern Iowa (BA, 1994) / University of Nebraska Omaha (MA, 2003)
- Played at Northern Iowa for four years under head coach Eldon Miller; played professionally in Portugal and Australia
- First coaching job was at Alleman High School in his hometown of Rock Island, IL
- Joined the coaching staff at then-Division II Nebraska-Omaha in 1996 as an assistant coach to Kevin Lehman
- Became an administrative assistant for Steve Alford at (then-Southwest) Missouri State in 1998, then followed Alford to Iowa the following season where he served as an assistant coach for the next eight years
- Hired as head coach at North Dakota in 2006, while the program was a member of the Division II North Central Conference
- Two years into his tenure, the program moved up to Division I as members of the now-defunct Great West Conference
- Jones’ teams won back-to-back conference tournaments in 2011 and 2012, but the league was too new to have auto-bid status for the NCAA Tournaments and the teams went to the CIT instead
- Went to three CITs in the first four seasons after the program joined the Big Sky; won the Big Sky regular season title and Big Sky Tournament in 2017, allowing the North Dakota Fighting Hawks to go to the Division I NCAA Tournament for the first time ever
- Resigned as UND head coach to become Dan Muller‘s associate head coach at Illinois State in May 2019
- In February 2022, Muller was fired and Jones was tabbed to lead the Redbirds for the rest of the 2021-22 season
- Spent one year on Brian Wardle‘s staff at Bradley then became an assistant at East Tennessee State in 2023 under Brooks Savage
Brian Jones Coaching Tree
- Jason Shay (East Tennessee State)
^ overall and North Dakota records include seasons at both the NCAA Division I and Division II levels (UND transitioned to Div I prior to the 2008-09 season)