PROFILE: Men's Basketball Head Coach Mike Jones

GREENSBORO – Mike Jones is still unpacking.

After a decade settled in one job, pulling up stakes to move to a new office in a new city in a new league means, well, there’s a lot to unpack.

But the office itself doesn’t really matter all that much to Jones, so there’s no hurry to empty the plastic tubs stacked against one wall.

It’s the people who matter.

It’s the people who are Jones’ priority.

It’s the people who make UNCG basketball special enough to lure Jones away from a successful 10-year run as Radford’s head coach.

And so, Jones has spent his first weeks on the job in Greensboro getting to know Greensboro. He has connected with the current players who have known nothing but winning in their time on campus. He has reached out to former players. He is getting to know the Spartan Club, the alumni, the UNCG administration and his coworkers in the athletics department.

Those people all want him to succeed. Jones knows they expect him to succeed.

“You know, there’s less pressure when you take a job at a place that hasn’t won,” Jones says. “When you take a job like this one, where they have won, the pressure goes up. I joke with folks that following Wes (Miller) here is like following John Wooden at UCLA. I understand the challenge, but it’s also invigorating.

“Because you know there is already a culture of winning amongst the players. I can see their work ethic. They don’t just get in here when it’s time to practice as a team. They get in here constantly on their own. They believe they’re good. They believe they’re supposed to win. And that’s a good thing. Because if you take over a place that hasn’t won, the first thing you have to do is build that belief. Well, that’s already in place here, and it’s something we were used to at Radford.”

Jones pauses a moment, leans forward and flashes an engaging smile.

“The expectation level is higher,” he says. “You feel it with the administration. You feel it with the alumni, with guys who have played here, with the community. That makes you want to work harder.”

THE OLD JOB

Hard work has never bothered Mike Jones.

If it did, he never would’ve taken the job at Radford. In his first gig as a head coach, he took over a program in shambles.

The Highlanders were coming off a 1-24 season and, worse, were on probation after NCAA violations. They had serious issues with Academic Progress Rate, the measure that holds schools accountable for the “student” part of the student-athlete equation.

The NCAA penalties meant Jones had two fewer scholarships to offer in each of his first two seasons at the helm.

“That’s a lot more significant than the average person might think,” Jones says, “but we managed it. We had APR issues when we came in the door, and we stabilized that situation. The great thing was Radford gave me time to build it the right way. They told me I could build with high school kids, and that I didn’t have to (win) right away. A lot changed with the campus in those 10 years, and a lot changed with our program.”

It wasn’t easy. Radford went 6-26 in Jones’ first season, 13-19 the next.

But in the third, Radford won 22 games, starting a run of seven winning seasons over the next eight. The Highlanders won 20 or more games in five of those, won two regular-season titles and the 2018 Big South tournament.

“The first few years were a big learning curve for me, because I had always been an assistant coach. I had never had that first chair,” Jones says. “(Radford) gave me an opportunity to ease into it. Now, I didn’t ease into it with the schedule. I had a schedule that was similar to the one Wes had here when he got the job. It was murderer’s row of good teams, and we got our heads beat in. Those experiences really helped our players. We threw them in the fire and they learned and grew pretty quickly. That really helped us turn things around within three years.”

The one notable memento already unpacked and on Jones’ office wall is a framed Boston Celtics jersey worn by Javonte Green, the first Radford player to play in the NBA.

Green was Radford’s version of Isaiah Miller, the UNCG star who just wrapped up his senior year and the only Spartan to ever play in two NCAA Tournaments.

Green, a 6-foot-4 guard, was a three-time All-Big South pick and the 2015 Big South defensive player of the year. He played four years overseas in Spain, Italy and Germany before earning a spot with the Celtics (who traded him to the Chicago Bulls this season).

Green, a guard who could rebound with big men, finished his college career as Radford’s all-time steals leader and the Highlanders’ No. 2 scorer. Sound familiar?

“Philosophically, I do believe that if your team is good defensively and a good defensive rebounding team, then you’ll have a chance to win night in and night out,” Jones says. “You’ll have a chance to win big games. You’ll have a chance to win championships. That’s been my experience.”

It’s that experience that drew Jones to recruit Carlik Jones -- no relation -- who became the 2020 Big South player of the year. A tenacious defender and do-it-all guard, Carlik Jones played three years for Radford and finished as a first-team All-ACC pick at Louisville as a grad transfer.

“My tilt has always been toward defense, because that’s what I was good at as a player,” Mike Jones says. “I had a high school coach who helped me understand defense and when I went to college, that’s the reason I played. I’ve always believed that if you’re the best defensive player on your team, you’re going to play no matter what. I always took that to heart.”

THE NEW JOB

With so much success at Radford, Jones wasn’t actively looking for a new job. Until Wes Miller, the winningest coach in UNCG’s history, moved on to Cincinnati.

“For the last three years at Radford, since we won the (Big South tournament) championship and went to the (NCAA) tournament, there was interest from other programs,” Jones said. “I looked at them, sure, but I worked on Shaka Smart’s staff at VCU and Shaka and I are both similar in that we’re not going to leave for just any job.

“That’s a luxury you have when you’ve already got a good job, and Radford was a very good job. I had a fantastic athletic director at Radford, and they really supported me during my time there. I didn’t have to leave. But when Wes left and UNCG called, that was different.”

Jones knows Wes Miller, and he watched the growth of UNCG’s program from afar. Their teams played one another twice in the last three years, when both were contenders for their league titles.

“I had always known that this is a great area, and that there are a lot of great basketball players within a close radius of the school,” Jones said. “It’s a neat place to live. So, this was one of those jobs that was appealing. You know going in that you can win here because I’ve seen UNCG win with Wes. It’s one of the better jobs in the league, and it’s hard to pass up.”

It’s no picnic. Jones moves from the one-bid Big South to the one-bid Southern Conference. Neither league has ever received an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament, sending only its conference tournament champ.

Before he was a two-time Big South coach of the year, Jones spent 18 years as an assistant coach with stops at Howard (his alma mater), Furman, Richmond, West Virginia, Georgia and VCU.

“I worked with John Beilein, and he was always – even at Richmond – not overly concerned or bent out of shape if he didn’t win a league championship, because you could always put yourself in position to get one of those at-large bids,” Jones says. “Well, that doesn’t happen in the Big South, and it doesn’t happen in the Southern Conference.

“It’s tough in a one-bid league. Commissioners and administrators think it can happen, but you look at the track record and see for yourself. It just doesn’t happen very often. You have to bank on winning the conference tournament to go to the NCAA Tournament. And when you’ve got 10 or 12 teams in a league fighting for one spot, man, it’s hard.”

It’s especially when four or five of those teams are really, really good. Jones lived that at Radford and saw it at UNCG.

“Just look at the Southern Conference the last five years with how good Wofford, East Tennessee State, Furman and UNCG have all been,” Jones says. “Only one them gets to go? Come on. That’s tough, man. That’s tough. Wes won 29 games one year and didn’t go to the NCAA Tournament. That’s brutal. When you have a 29-win year, that’s about as good as it gets at this level. So, yeah, it’s difficult. You’ve got to be a really good team through and through, and you’ve got to be a little lucky.”

THE PHILOSOPHY

And you’ve got to have players. Good players make good teams.

But there’s more to recruiting that simply finding good players. You have to find the right players.

Which brings us back to Jones’ priority. People.

“Having the right players is everything,” Jones says. “UNCG has done a really great job in recruiting, and the depth on their team this past year was really impressive. … I’ve been very impressed with all of them as young men.”

A solid nucleus of players remain including twin guards Keyshaun and Kobe Langley, versatile forwards Kaleb Hunter and Khyre Thompson, and power forward Mo Abdulsalam. Each is a leader in his own way.

“They want to do the work,” Jones says, “… They want to be good.”

But they also need players around them. Jones inherited five open scholarships, and he has gone to work as a recruiter.

“My philosophy is simple,” Jones says. “I go out and try to find players who are tough. I’m looking for guys who have skills for the position they play and athleticism. Building a team is like putting a puzzle together. It’s not just about amassing talent. It’s about putting together a team. If you have 12 really talented guys, there’s no guarantee they’ll play well together. What happens if all of them want to shoot? Or if all of them want to pass? It’s not going to work. You need to find a mix and put it together.”

It’s finding the right players -- not just good players, but the right players -- that separates average coaches from good coaches, and good coaches from great coaches.

“I was fortunate to be in the SEC (at Georgia) when Billy Donovan was putting together those great Florida teams,” Jones says. “One of the ingredients he brought to that team was guys who were selfless, guys who didn’t mind putting in the hard work of playing great defense. They had a couple of shooters, a couple of point guards who were playmakers, a couple of guys who could defend in the low post, a few guys who could score inside. There’s a fine line between just having a lot of talent and having a great team like that one, which played so well together.

“The challenge of being a head coach is putting that puzzle together to come up with a winning team. Wes did that very well here, and we did that very well at Radford. Hopefully, I can continue along that path.”

EPILOGUE

Mike Jones will do it his way. He’ll adapt what he has learned over a long career as an assistant and a successful run as a head coach.

And it all comes down to people.

Way back in his playing days at Howard, Jones knew Cy Alexander, the last coach to take N.C. A&T to the NCAA Tournament.

Back then, Alexander was an assistant at Howard before landing his own first job as a head coach at South Carolina State. Alexander made a promise to Jones’ class that he would not leave Howard until they had graduated.

“Years later, when I was at Radford, I coached against Cy a couple of games,” Jones says. “Cy’s a good dude, man. He put up with my B.S. for four years at Howard, which I feel bad about, just because what a jerk I was those college years. Now I understand.  When I get players who are like I was, then I think, ‘OK, this is what Cy had to go through, so let me have some patience with this kid like Cy had with me.’”

That playing experience is something Jones recalls and uses to this day.

“It has certainly been helpful to me (as a coach), because there’s a perspective there,” Jones says. “I remember what I went through, some of the trials and tribulations, the learning experiences I had, and not just from a basketball standpoint, but from a young, college student standpoint – a kid trying to figure things out, trying to mature and develop as a man.

“I was pretty immature for two of the four years I was at Howard, and I made plenty of mistakes. I still draw on those experiences, and I’ll share them with our team. I did some real dumb things, and I hope that by sharing it with the team, those guys can avoid some of those pitfalls. Those years, even though they were a long time ago, resonate in my mind.”

Once again, Jones pauses a moment in his unfinished office.

He leans forward, and there’s that disarming smile again. He puts you at ease. He has a knack of making you feel like the most important person in his life at that moment. He forges on.

“You know, we present this picture: ‘You shouldn’t do this; you should be this way,’” Jones says. “But stop and think for a second, and you realize, ‘You know what? I did the same thing when I was that age.’ So I try to keep all that in perspective when I’m dealing with young folks.”

It’s then you realize that Mike Jones is a team builder. A people person. Always.

He has inherited players from a program that is used to winning. Jones and his staff of assistants will add their own players as the program moves forward.

People were, are and always will be the priority.

“For us, it’s about that brotherhood piece,” Jones says. “We have to build that brotherhood, and that takes time. Because it’s not an automatic thing. You’ve got to be face-to-face with people, and communicate, and have tough conversations, and deal with adversity, and work at it. Building those relationships is the fun part for me. … We know there will be growing pains, but we’re up for the challenge.”

Since 2010, journalist Jeff Mills has won 10 national and 10 state writing awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors, the Society for Features Journalism, and the N.C. Press Association.