Eastern Washington men’s basketball adds two assistant coaches, promotes two others

The Eastern Washington men’s basketball team rounded out its coaching staff with the addition of two new members and the promotion of two others, as announced by the program on Tuesday.

Jerry Brown, a new assistant coach, comes to Eastern from Denver, where he was an assistant on the Pioneers staff. The Pioneers, who play in the Summit League, went 15-17 last season.

Before his time in Denver, Brown spent time on college coaching staffs at San Diego, Stanford and UTEP in addition to a year as video coordinator for the NBA’s Detroit Pistons.

“He has a great basketball knowledge,” EWU head coach David Riley said of Brown, who also played collegiately at Fresno State and Santa Clara. “He has been around and seen how different programs operate. (He is a) high-energy, great relationship guy.”

Also joining the EWU staff is Donald Brady, who for the last five years was the head coach of Bellevue College, which competes with other community colleges in the Northwest Athletic Conference. With Brady as head coach, Bellevue went 72-60 and won the 2023 NWAC championship, and Brady was named the league’s coach of the year.

Prior to that, Brady coached at Shoreline Community College and at the University of Redlands. He also played at the Division III program Redlands from 2003 to 2006.

“What caught my eye was, watching his teams play, they play really similarly to us,” Riley said of Brady.

Riley also highlighted the importance of Brown and Brady’s ties to the west coast. Both are originally from California and have spent the majority of their coaching careers out West.

“We really try to stay on the West Coast for recruiting, so west coast ties are important,” Riley said. “(And) the way coaches approach the game, we want people with a developmental mindset. That’s what we do here. We want guys who take pride in teaching the game, so that’s a big piece of it.”

The Eagles also promoted to assistant coaching roles Blake Fernandez – formerly the program’s director of basketball operations – and Ben Beauchamp, who was the director of player development and recruiting coordinator. The role of assistant coach Pedro Garcia Rosado remains the same.

In January the NCAA Division I Council increased the number of assistant coaches in men’s and women’s basketball from three to five, with the rule change taking effect on July 1. Two of the coaches are not allowed to recruit off-campus but are able to take part in skill instruction and other on-court activities.

Brown and Brady are replacing former assistants Mark Darnall and Arturo Ormond. Darnall is now the head coach at Jessup University in California, a program that is transitioning from NAIA to Division II. Ormond, who was Riley’s associate head coach at Eastern, joined Shantay Legans’ staff at the University of Portland.

Riley, last season’s Big Sky Coach of the Year, began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Eastern in 2011. He has been with the program ever since.