Jacksonville State Hires Ray Harper

Editor: We have reproduced portions of the press release from jsugamecocks.com regarding their new coaching hire. Valley Hoops Insider will update in the days ahead.

JACKSONVILLE – Jacksonville State has selected a proven winner to take over its men’s basketball team.

On Wednesday, Gamecocks athletics Director Greg Seitz announced the hiring of Ray Harper as the program’s 11th head coach and the fifth to run the Gamecocks at the Division I level.

“We are thrilled to have Ray Harper take over our men’s basketball program,” Seitz said. “He is a winner and has proven that at every stop he has made in his coaching career. We feel fortunate to be able to land a coach with his credentials at Jacksonville State.”

A veteran with over 30 years of coaching experience at the collegiate ranks, Harper takes the reigns in Jacksonville with a 431-127 career record in 17 years as a head coach. That career includes four national championships – two at the Division II level and two in NAIA.

“I’m excited about the opportunity,” Harper said before meeting with his team for the first time on Wednesday evening. “We are going to work extremely hard and we are going to be about winning championships. We know it’s going to be a lot of work, but we are ready to get started.”

Harper replaces James Green, who reached mutual agreement with JSU to part ways on March 16. He was chosen from a long list of what Seitz called very qualified applicants.

He comes to Jacksonville after a five-year stint at Western Kentucky that saw him post an 89-64 mark that included three 20-win seasons and two trips to the NCAA Tournament. After serving over two years as an assistant at WKU, he took over as the Hilltoppers’ interim coach in January of the 2011-12 season and was named the full-time head coach in early February.

At WKU, he went to the NCAA Tournament in 2012 and 2013 and won 20 games in his first three full seasons, making him the first coach in WKU history to achieve the feat.

Prior to joining the WKU program as an assistant in 2009, Harper built a head coaching resume that included four national championships, five national runner-up finishes, eight conference titles, five national coach-of-the-year honors and a 342-63 record over 12 years at Kentucky Wesleyan and Oklahoma City University.

In nine years at his alma mater Kentucky Wesleyan in Owensboro, Ky., Harper laid claim to seven NCAA coaching records, surpassing Division I record-holders in all instances, including becoming the fastest to 200 wins (224 games), holding the most consecutive 30-win seasons (6) and compiling the most wins in each of the first four-through-eight seasons of his career.

With NCAA Division II title game appearances each season from 1998-2003, the Bremen, Ky., native became the first NCAA head coach since John Wooden to appear in six-straight NCAA National Championship games. He won in 1999 and 2001.