Following his hiring as the 11th head coach in James Madison men’s basketball history on March 20, Mark Byington has added five members to his coaching staff for the 2020-21 season, as announced by the program on Tuesday morning.
 
Andrew Wilson, who worked alongside Byington at both Georgia Southern and College of Charleston, will join Xavier Joyner and Jon Cremins as assistant coaches, while Keith Chesley has been named Director of Basketball Operations and Calvin Baker will serve as Director of Player Development and Recruiting.
 
“I am really excited about the staff we’ve put together from hundreds of potential coaches that expressed interest in James Madison,” Byington said. “I wanted to build a balanced staff with coaches who will be excellent mentors and teachers while having familiarity with the Mid-Atlantic region. Each of them is great at building student-athlete relationships, skill development and understanding that our first priority is to take care of our players. I love the fact that that these coaches are here and excited to help make JMU into a championship program. My staff is not completely finished and I will add another staff position at a later date.”
 
Andrew Wilson joins Byington from Statesboro, having served alongside him for all seven seasons at Georgia Southern. The pair led the Eagles to their first-ever postseason bid and three straight 20-win campaigns in the last three years. Georgia Southern racked up 13 all-conference selections, including Tookie Brown, who was the first Sun Belt Player of the Year in program history in 2019 and was the first player in league history to take home four First Team All-Sun Belt nods.
 
Prior to Georgia Southern, Wilson spent a season at Binghamton and six seasons at College of Charleston, where he also coached along Byington and helped lead the Cougars to an average of 22 wins per season and three postseason appearancees in six years. Wilson played parts of six seasons at Florida State, returning from two medical hardships to break the school record for games played (129) and be named a senior co-captain in 2005-06.
 
Xavier Joyner comes to Harrisonburg after two seasons as an assistant coach at Mount St. Mary’s and a lengthy coaching career with stops at the collegiate, high school and AAU levels. Prior to Emmitsburg, Joyner spent three years as the assistant coach and scouting director at Paul VI Catholic High School in Fairfax, Va., capped by the 2017-18 season that saw him help lead the team to a 33-4 record and 18-0 mark in WCAC play.
 
Joyner also spent four seasons as an assistant coach for Washington D.C.’s Nike Team Takeover, one of the top AAU programs in the country and was a head coach at both Prince George’s Community College (2010-15) and Montgomery College Germantown (2004-10). His 200 junior college head coaching victories are among the most in history and he is the only coach in Maryland JUCO history to win regional titles at two different schools.
 
Jon Cremins will also join Byington from Georgia Southern, where he has served as an assistant coach in each of the last two seasons, helping the Eagles to at least 20 wins in both campaigns. Cremins has head coaching experience, having led Spartanburg Methodist to a 55-11 mark in two seasons at the helm, with assistant coaching stops at USC Upstate (2017-18), Kennesaw State (2014-15), Southeast Missouri State (2012-14) and College of Charleston (2010-12), where he coached alongside Byington and Wilson.
 
Keith Chesley was director of operations for Georgia Southern under Byington, having spent the 2018-19 season in the same role at Stetson. Prior to his time in DeLand, Chesley was a graduate assistant at Florida State from 2016-18, where he earned his masters degree in sports management. He was also a two-time All-American at the University of Maine at Augusta, earning Academic All-American honors four times and having been named National Student-Athlete of the Year in 2015.
 
Calvin Baker spent the 2019-20 season as an assistant coach at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore after three years of his own at Paul VI Catholic High School in Fairfax, where he oversaw scouting, recruiting and player development. Baker has also served as an assistant coach with Nike Team Takeover and was the director of recruiting for Virginia’s Under Armour Association grassroots program after starting his coaching career at C.D. Hylton High School in Woodbridge, Va.

http://www.jmusports.com/news/2020/4/28/mens-basketball-byington-hires-five-to-coaching-staff.aspx