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UNC Greensboro (20-12, 13-5/2nd in SoCon) — The Mike Jones era has been outstanding if you limit it to the regular-season, however, for the fourth-straight season, the recipe from that regular-season success hasn’t carried over to a tournament setting at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville. For the fourth-straight season, including the second in a row as the No. 2 seed, the Spartans were bounced in their opening game of the tournament, as UNCG would suffer a 64-57 quarterfinal loss to VMI.
The disappointment of how things finished were evidently shown in the face of one of the league’s top coaches, in Jones, but fixing this issue for one of the up-and-coming coaches in mid-major basketball might require taking a hard look at how UNCG is doing things in the regular-season, and what they need to change as a staff.
Jones lost top assistant Donny Lind during the off-season, as Lind took the head coaching job at Mount St. Mary’s, where he would hit the ball out of the park in his first season as the Mountaineers’ head coach, taking the Mount to the Big Dance. That said, maybe reaching out to Lind during the off-season to ask what he did differently in his role as head coach at Mount St. Mary’s than he did with Jones when he was on staff with him at both Radford (2016-21) and UNCG (2021-24).
The coaching duo did help Radford to make the NCAA Tournament back in 2018, but ever since getting into the Southern Conference, despite consistently being one of the most successful teams in the SoCon in three of his first four seasons as head, including back-to-back second-place finishes, a third-place finish and sixth-place finish in the league’s overall standings at the end of the regular-season in his four years as the head coach of UNCG.
Asking Lind for advice or insight from an outsider’s perspective might take some humility but knowing Jones like I do and knowing the type of Christian man he is, I don’t think ego has ever been an issue with him, which is why I have the utmost respect for him as a head coach. He’s the right kind of leader, and that is sometimes the hardest part for head coaches. The other thing I really appreciate about Jones as a head coach is his authenticity as a head coach and candidness.
Part of UNCG’s lack of success in the tournament might have something to do with a perennial lack of support from a fan base that never has matched the standard and elite level established by the teams it puts on the floor in the conference tournament each season. That is something that Jones cannot control or really fix.
With that said, if Jones and the Spartans ever figure out how to duplicate regular-season success and turn it into success in Asheville, then the Spartans might create a new SoCon dynasty like the one it was approaching before Wes Miller left to become the head coach at Cincinnati following the 2020-21 season.
Jones has gotten a lot right, which is why he’s won 20 or more games in each of the past three seasons, including helping the Spartans routinely post one of the top defensive units in college basketball. This season, the Spartans once again led the league and ranked among the national leaders in both scoring defense (65.4 PPG/25th in scoring defense) and field goal percentage defense (39.9%/15th in field goal pct defense).
That said, the Spartans must once again find reinforcements sooner rather than later if they want to maintain their status as one of the SoCon’s top dogs, and once again, Jones and his staff have delivered a strong response to losing quite a bit of offensive production for a second-straight season.
Heading into the 2024-25 season, many lacked the confidence that the Spartans could keep the ball rolling under Jones after losing the likes of Mikeal Brown-Jones, Keyshawn Langley and Kobe Langley were lost either to the portal or being out eligibility, as the Spartans were selected to finish sixth overall in the SoCon standings in the preseason.
The Spartans responded by finishing second in the league standings for the second year in a row and finished in the top three of the league standings for the third-straight season. But that hasn’t been good enough in Asheville, and while the Spartans have done a nice job of adding to the immediate production lost to transfer or graduation, but UNCG has had trouble building adequate depth to endure the latter portions of the season, and by the time the Spartans reach Asheville, they look like a different version of themselves, and usually much different than the team we see at the end of January. That’s not a good thing.
This time around, Jones must replace his five top scorers from a year ago, including the Spartans’ top two players and two of the top players in the SoCon to the transfer portal, in both Donovan Atwell (transferred to Texas Tech) and Kenyon Giles (transferred to Wichita State), as well as guard Ronald Polite III, who is out of eligibility.
Atwell and Giles were joined in the transfer portal by forward Muon Reath (transferred to San Diego), and forward Jalen Breath (transferred to Ohio) were some that opted to part ways with UNCG following the Spartans’ 64-57 SoCon quarterfinal loss to VMI in Asheville.
With so much to replace, Jones has gone about meeting the challenge head on just like he has been successful at doing in the past, and he has brought in some pretty good talent so far, and it will be likely that I will have to come back and add to the UNC Greensboro portion of this article at a later date, as Jones and the Spartans likely are not finished adding talent from both the portal and the high school ranks as of yet.
Along with those who have departed to the transfer portal, guards Akrum Ahemed, Ronald Polite III, Joryiam Saizounou and forwards Malik Henry, Miles Jones and Demetrius Davis Jr. are also out of eligibility, leaving Jones and his staff nearly needing to start completely from scratch heading into the 2025-26 season.
The lone returnees off last year’s roster in the paint include Lithuanian Domas Kauzonas and Clifton Efinda, who hails from Ireland and walked on to the team prior to the 2024-25 season.
Team identity has always been important to Mike Jones, and even prior to that with his teams at Radford. Team identity, too, has been an important element of UNCG teams coached by Wes Miller even before Jones showed up to take over the reins of the successful mid-major and Southern Conference hoops program.
The Spartans staff have managed to bring in players from both the JUCO circuit, as well as in the transfer portal. The Spanish influence has meant a lot to UNCG basketball a lot in the past, as few will forget what Francis Alonso did for the UNCG hoops program in four years suiting up for the Blue and Gold.
Freshman Additions:
Two important additions have been secured from the high school ranks, in 6-4 combo guard KJ Younger from Matthews, N.C., by way of Weddington High School, as well as 6-7 shooting guard Assane Mandian from Saly, Senegal by way of the NBA Academy of Africa.
Younger averaged 25 PPG, 8.7 RPG, 2.9 APG and 1.8 SPG for the 2024-25 campaign. He was an impressive 57% (248-of-434) from the field during his senior season at Weddington, as well as shooting 34% (34-of-129) from three-point range in his senior season. He shot 72% (159-of-229) from the charity stripe.
Younger is a good athlete with a smooth game and jump shot. He also possesses good athleticism and will have a chance to crack the rotation this coming season. He was rated as a three-and-a-half-star recruit by http://verbalcommitts.com and rated as a three-star prospect by 247Sports.
Manadian is more a project talent with the opportunity to see his talents developed at the NBA Academy in Africa translate to the American game. He brings a good talent-base and solid all-around skill, as the 6-6 shooting guard also has the ability to play the three positions.
The 194-lb product has excellent length and has the ability to affect the game on the defensive end of the floor with that length. That ability on the defensive end along with his overall athleticism will give him a chance to see the floor sooner rather than later for the Spartans.
Look for UNCG to potentially add one or two more freshman signees before the summer is over but will likely look most to the transfer portal and talent that can be immediately available and ready to go as soon as this coming season.
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Early 2024-25 Outlook:
Much like last summer, it’s hard to get a good gauge on how it will all come together for Mike Jones’ UNCG team in the 2025-26 season, as they will once again relying heavily on additions from the transfer portal to replace massive losses in terms of offensive production.
That led to a majority of the media picking the Spartans sixth in the preseason last season, and the Spartans would easily exceed those expectations with another second-place finish in the final regular-season league standings.
Once again, however, UNCG’s performance in Asheville turned out to be a performance that for many, would leave a sour recollection of the season for many fans and media and it overshadows what was another solid 20-win campaign for UNCG. Until UNCG can find a way to crack the code in Asheville, and develop depth, people are going to continue to say UNCG is a good “regular season” team.
I expect as talented as a coach as Jones and his staff are, that they will figure that out in the very near future. There’s still a lot of work to be done recruiting from the portal over the remainder of the summer for Jones and staff, so it’s hard to once again gauge where the Spartans might fall in the overall pecking order as far as the 2025-26 order of finish is concerned in the SoCon.
Starters Lost: (5) G-Ronald Polite III (out of eligibility), G-Kenyon Giles (transferred to Wichita State), G-Donovan Atwell (transferred to Texas Tech), F-Demetrius Davis (out of eligibility), Jalen Breath (transferred to Ohio)
Others Lost: (7) G-Isaiah Washington (transferred to Northern Illinois), F-Muon Reath (transferred to San Diego), F-Malik Henry (out of eligibility), Miles Jones (out of eligibility), G-Joryiam Saizonou (out of eligibility), G-Akrum Ahemed (out of eligibility), G-Mason So (transferred to Mount St. Mary’s)
Best Returning Player: F-Domas Kauzonas
Potential Breakout Player in 2024-25: N/A
Best Transfer Portal Get: G-Donald Whithead Jr.
Best Freshman Addition: G-KJ Younger
Overall, Portal/Recruiting Synopsis and Grade: B+/still in-progress
