ISU just filled their open assistant coach spot that was vacated when Brendan Mullins left to go to SIU
They have hired Brian Jones, who was the HEAD COACH at North Dakota! This is a little odd for a guy to go from head coach of a midmajor to assistant at another midmajor. Not sure I know of another example. Both Jim Molinari (WIU) and Kevin McKenna (Indiana State) left head coaching jobs at midmajors to take assistant spots at POWER CONFERENCE schools where their salaries instantly went UP - but does anyone else know of a case where a guy makes such a downward move, like this? We know Paula Buscher did it on the women's side (BU to SIUE) but we all know it was because nobody wanted to work for who she worked for plus she knew she was going to get canned because she wasn't going to kiss a**.
Jones is originally from Rock Island IL, played college basketball at Northern Iowa, and has been head coach at UND for 13 seasons and is 190-217. He has gone 12-20 in 2017-18 in the Big Sky Conference and 12-18 this past year in 2018-19 in the Summit Conference.
He had gotten a 4-year contract extension in 2017 so he was signed until spring of 2021 (2 years left on his current deal), but was probably feeling the heat of having just 2 winning seasons since 2011-12 and only 5 winning seasons in his 13 years there.
His salary is $140K but the school has been having significant budget issues -
https://www.westfargopioneer.com/spo...ract-extension
There may be more and it's possible the school was trying to buy him out - as they just did that to their
volleyball coach and their
women's basketball coach.
They don't have any kids from Illinois on the roster - but they have one that Bradley recruited out of Davenport & North Scott HS in Iowa,
Marlon Stewart, who transferred there from Creighton. They do have six kids on their roster with foreign backgrounds.