Belmont men’s basketball assistant James Strong will be returning to his alma mater Vanderbilt University to join Jerry Stackhouse’s new Commodore staff, according to a press release from Belmont Athletics.
Strong spent eight seasons on Rick Byrd’s staff helping the Bruins win eight regular season titles and two conference tournament championships.
Prior to Belmont, Strong played for Vanderbilt from 1996 to 2000 and then was an assistant coach at Vanderbilt from 2001 to 2006.
He spent time developing some of Belmont’s best athletes like J.J. Mann, Ian Clark and Craig Bradshaw.
“He was pretty much in charge of the development side of things,” said Bradshaw. “He was a dude who you can confide in, anything you had going off the court. And you have to have a coach like that.”
Strong organized individual workouts with the Bruins redshirt athletes. Some of his recent successes can be seen in Grayson Murphy and conference Freshman of the Year Nick Muszynski.
Strong is the first Belmont assistant coach to get hired at another school after Casey Alexander took over as the head basketball coach.
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Photo by Carina Eudy.