Following-up on a rumor that HoopDirt.com posted last week. It has now been made official that Ron Jirsa has been named as an assistant coach at Radford University.

“We are excited to welcome Coach Jirsa into our basketball family,” Jones said. “I have admired his work from afar for many years, and I have worked with some of the same people he has worked with at times during his various stops. He is a tremendous teacher of the game and has worked with several terrific coaches at all levels of college basketball.”

“Personally, it will be great to work with someone who has been a head coach at the collegiate level and can share his experiences making decisions from that perspective. Ron will be great for our players and our staff because of the richness of his career as a coach. He has had success coaching championship teams, playing in the NCAA Tournament, and developing players for the NBA and professional leagues overseas. Ron will be a great asset to our program.”

A veteran of the coaching profession for over 30 years, Jirsa joins the Highlanders after one season at Tennessee Tech. He handled post player development and recruiting for the Golden Eagles.

“I have followed Radford basketball the last four years and watched Coach Jones build a winning program,” Jirsa noted. “I am looking forward to being a part of his staff and contributing to future success in any way I can.”

Jirsa has experience as both a head coach and assistant. Prior to Tennessee Tech, Jirsa was the recruiting coordinator for Bethel University in Arden Hills, Minn.

Before his position with the Royals, Jirsa spent six years as the associate head coach at Minnesota, serving under then-head coach Tubby Smith for the fourth time in his coaching career. Smith and Jirsa first began their working relationship at Virginia Commonwealth, where both served under coach J.D. Barnett during the 1984-85 season. The Rams finished 26-6 that season, winning the Sun Belt Conference title to advance to the NCAA Tournament. They reunited when Smith hired Jirsa as an assistant at Tulsa before the 1991-92 season. Three years later, Jirsa was named associate head coach of the Golden Hurricane.

Jirsa accompanied Smith to Georgia when he took over the Bulldogs program in 1995. For two years, he served as associate head coach for Smith at Georgia before serving as head coach from 1997-99. His Bulldog squads posted a combined 35-30 record. During his time in Athens, the Bulldogs put together back-to-back recruiting classes that were rated among the top-five in the nation by several recruiting analysts.

His teams also made two NIT appearances. In his first season, Georgia posted a 20-15 record, only the seventh 20-win season in program history, en route to a third-place finish in the NIT. Jirsa’s Bulldogs put together a 4-1 mark in the postseason with wins over Iowa, North Carolina State, Vanderbilt and Fresno State in March 1998.

In his six combined seasons as an assistant at Tulsa and Georgia, Jirsa helped four consecutive teams win at least 21 games and reach the NCAA Tournament each year. The first three seasons – two at Tulsa and one at Georgia – he reached the Sweet 16. He also coached Jumaine Jones, who was a first-round NBA Draft pick of the Atlanta Hawks in 1999.

Prior to his coaching stint at Minnesota, Jirsa spent four seasons as head coach at Marshall. The Thundering Herd went 13-19 in 2006-07, losing to Memphis in the Conference USA Tournament Quarterfinals.

Preceding his position at Marshall, Jirsa was the senior assistant coach at Dayton under then-head coach Oliver Purnell for four seasons. During his stint at UD, the Flyers posted an 88-39 overall record, made two NCAA Tournaments and two NIT appearances. In the 2002-03 campaign, Dayton posted a 24-6 record, won the Atlantic 10 Tournament championship, advanced to the NCAA Tournament as a four seed and finished the season ranked among the top 25 teams in the nation in the final Associated Press and USA Today polls.

Jirsa has coached in 30 postseason games overall, 18 of those in the NCAA Tournament, and has appeared in postseason play 15 times. He owns a career record of 78-104 in six years as a head coach at Marshall and Georgia.

His coaching career began at Connecticut College as an assistant coach following his graduation from Gettysburg College in 1981. Two years later, he moved on to Delaware and spent one season with the Blue Hens, before taking a graduate assistant position with VCU, which finished ranked 11th in the nation in 1984-85.

Jirsa earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Gettysburg College in 1981 and a Master of Arts in athletic administration from Tulsa in 1987. He was a three-sport letterwinner at Ledyard High School in Ledyard, Conn. He and his wife, Laura, have one daughter, Hannah.

http://www.radfordathletics.com/news/2015/6/19/MBB_0619151038.aspx