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:

Awards:

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

 

^ 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)