University of Tennessee head men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes announced the hiring of Justin Caldwell as player development coordinator.
A veteran coach, Caldwell possesses over a decade of experience across the Division I, Division II, high school and youth levels, including five years as a collegiate head coach. Caldwell most recently spent the 2023-24 campaign as an assistant at Marshall University.
“We are pleased to add Justin to our staff here at Tennessee,” Barnes said. “He possesses a strong basketball mind and has shown the ability to develop young people. Justin’s passion and coaching acumen will assuredly assist our program on a daily basis.”
Caldwell spent 2018-23 as the head coach at his alma mater, Glenville State University, a DII school in Glenville, W.Va. Inheriting a program that went 8-21 the year before his arrival, Caldwell turned the Pioneers into a 9-4 team in the COVID-condensed 2020-21 season and up to a 17-13 team during his final campaign in 2022-23.
In 2020-21, his program ascended as high as No. 13 nationally and averaged 95.5 points per game. Both that year and the next, his squad averaged over 12 made 3-pointers per contest, leading the nation in 2021-22, a season in which the team set a program record with a 3.34 GPA.
Caldwell coached five First Team All-Mountain East Conference honorees at Glenville State, including John Williams, a 2020-21 DII All-American after averaging 27.8 points per game to lead the country in scoring. Four of his players, including Williams, went on to play DI basketball.
Before his first head coaching opportunity, Caldwell worked for two years, 2016-18, at Pennsylvania Western University California (California [PA]), a Division II institution in California, Pa. The previous three seasons, 2013-16, Caldwell was an assistant at Glenville State.
“I am thrilled to join the University of Tennessee men’s basketball staff,” Caldwell said. “It is a true privilege to work under someone like Rick Barnes, not only due to his immense success as a coach, but also because of who he is as a person. I cannot wait to get to work with this talented team and do all I can to help this excellent program continue its success.”
Caldwell got his first formal coaching job in 2012-13 as an assistant at Wyoming East High School in New Richmond, W.Va., his alma mater. As a prep senior in 2006-07, he led the Warriors to the Class AA state title and, for the second year in a row, earned first team all-state designation.
A standout collegian, Caldwell played three seasons at West Virginia Wesleyan College, a DII school in Buchanan, W.Va., and one at Glenville State. The two-time All-West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference designee totaled 1,997 points in his career. He capped his collegiate tenure by averaging 23.7 points per game and shooting 91.4 percent at the line for the Pioneers in 2010-11.
After the conclusion of his college career, Caldwell played for the BBC Bascharage Hedgehogs in Luxembourg for two seasons. During both his college and professional careers, Caldwell coached various youth teams during the summer.
Caldwell, who hails from Mullens, W.Va., earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education from Glenville State in 2013 and added a master’s degree in exercise science from California (PA) in 2017. He is married to Kim Caldwell, the head coach of the University of Tennessee women’s basketball team.
