MEN’S BASKETBALL: TSU hires former LSU coach Jones to replace Davis
Published 4:00 pm Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Johnny Jones will coach a new band of Tigers.
The former LSU men’s basketball coach has been picked to succeed Mike Davis at the helm of the Texas Southern program. Jones will be formally introduced at a news conference at noon Wednesday at Texas Southern’s HPE Arena in Houston.
He most recently served as associate head coach to Eric Musselman at Nevada, a team that beat the University of Texas en route to a Sweet 16 finish in the NCAA tournament last March. Prior to that, Jones led LSU from 2012-17, going 90-72 overall with an NCAA tournament berth in 2015 and having coached current NBA Rookie of the Year Ben Simmons the next season.
Jones, who played at LSU from 1980-84 and went to the 1981 Final Four as a player, has been a head coach for 17 seasons, going 295-234. He succeeded current Lamar coach Tic Price on an interim basis at Memphis during the 1999-2000 season and went to North Texas in 2001, where he built a 190-146 record with two NCAA tournament appearances (2007, 2010) five 20-win seasons. He reached the 20-win mark twice at LSU.
Davis recently accepted the head coaching position at the University of Detroit Mercy after leading TSU to its fourth NCAA tournament appearance in his six years at the school.
About I.C. Murrell
I.C. Murrell was promoted to editor of The News, effective Oct. 14, 2019. He previously served as sports editor since August 2015 and has won or shared eight first-place awards from state newspaper associations and corporations. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, grew up mostly in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and graduated from the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
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