Texas Tech head men’s basketball coach Chris Beard has announced the hiring of Bob Donewald Jr. as the Director of Player of Development.
Donewald brings a wealth of basketball experience to the Red Raider program after coaching at the professional, international and collegiate levels. Among his experiences, he was the head coach of the Chinese National Team during the 2012 London Olympics, an NBA assistant with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Hornets in Charlotte and New Orleans, the head coach of the Shanghai Sharks and Xinjiang Flying Tigers (Chinese Basketball Association), the Iowa Energy (NBA D League) and most recently Lokomotiv Kuban in Russia. Along with coaching, he served as an assistant for New Jersey Nets general manager Willis Reed before his coaching roles in the NBA.
“It’s a really exciting opportunity for me to be a part of the Texas Tech program,” Donewald said. “I’ve been around the world coaching against the best and I think Chris Beard is one of the best out there. It’s a great position for me to learn from and help support him.”
Donewald began his coaching career as a student assistant under his father, Bob Donewald Sr., at Western Michigan University. His father was the head coach at Illinois State (1978-1989) and then Western Michigan from 1989-2000 after serving as an assistant for Bob Knight for five seasons, including the 1976 undefeated run to the national championship. Donewald Jr. was an assistant coach at Morehead State from 1994-96 before his first head coaching experiences internationally with the Leicester Riders and Derby Storm.
He returned to the United States to begin working in the NBA starting with the New Jersey Nets. He served as an assistant general manager for Reed and head coach Chuck Daly before returning to coaching with assistant roles in Charlotte, New Orleans and Cleveland. During his NBA coaching experience, he was responsible for helping organize defensive game plans, practice plans and developing game strategy and adjustments. He was with the Hornets organization from 2001-2003 and joined the Cavaliers for the 2003-04 season. Donewald’s professional career included the development of LeBron James, Patrick Beverly, Lou Williams, Jamal Mashburn, Baron Davis, Carlos Boozer and Hassan Whiteside.
After the NBA, Donewald returned to a head coaching position internationally with Objetivo Sao Carlos (Brazil) from 2005-06 and then back to the states for the 2007-08 season as an assistant at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Donewald then led Dnipro Dnepropetrovsk (2008-09) with Patrick Beverley to the Ukrainian UBL Cup Semifinals before taking over the head coaching position with the Shanghai Sharks in China. Donewald coached the Sharks from 2009-11 under the ownership of Yao Ming and led the team to the CBA’s Final Four of the 2010 playoffs after taking over a team that had finished in last place the year before his hiring.
Leading the Chinese National Team from 2010-12, Donewald was the head coach during the 2012 London Olympics and also the 2010 World Championships and Asian Games. The team won the gold medal at the 2011 and 2010 Asian Games and he was honored with the Asian Games Best Coach in 2010 and the 2011 Asian Championships Best Coach. Donewald’s Chinese National Team went 36-0 in Asia during his time leading the team.
Following his national team experience, he would then take over the Xinjiang Flying Tigers for the 2011 season in the CBA before returning to American where he led the Iowa Energy in the NBA D League as part of the Memphis Grizzlies organization. Among players called up to the NBA were Whiteside, Willie Reed, Kalin Lucas, Patrick Christopher, Tyrus Thomas, James Ennis and Alex Stepheson.
He last two stops were head coaching internationally with the Jilin Northeast Tigers in the CBA before spending last season as the head coach of the PBC Lokomotiv Kuban in the VTB United League in Russia.
Donewald joins the Texas Tech program which is coming off advancing to the NCAA National Championship Final and winning the Big 12 regular-season championship. The Red Raiders went 31-7 to amass the winningest season in program history after also advancing to the 2018 NCAA Elite Eight. Beard has led the program to a 76-31 overall record in three seasons and has had two NBA first-round draft picks with Jarrett Culver being selected sixth in the 2019 NBA Draft and Zhaire Smith going 16th in 2018. Tech went 14-4 last season to secure the conference’s regular-season title before making a run to the program’s first Final Four appearance.
“This program has done a lot of great things and I’m looking forward to being a part of it,” Donewald said. “I’ve been lucky to have a lot of experiences coaching throughout the world and I think I’ve learned some things that I think I can share and utilize that can help our program. I’m going to use this experience to learn from Beard and the great coaching staff he already has. I can’t wait to dive in.”
https://texastech.com/news/2019/7/11/mens-basketball-beard-adds-donewald-to-coaching-staff.aspx
