Brandon Watkins Joins BG's MBB Staff

So the assistant coach line up for BG MBB is set for whenever basketball starts again.  As you know, Anthony Stacey left to be the head coach at Whitmer leaving the top assistant job open.  It was a pretty important hire, because both of the other two are in the first D1 coaching jobs.

The man selected for the job is Brandon Watkins, who is currently an assistant at NIU.  He grew up in Chicago and attended St. Joseph (see: Hoop Dreams, see Isiah Thomas, see Evan Turner).  They won a state title and was named the "Fourth Quarter Kid."

He went to Penn State and led them to the Sweet Sixteen and was all-Big Ten (HM).  He then went to Europe and had a successful career for 10 years, something he shares with Huger and Stacey, in fact.  

He went to NIU as a grad assistant and video guy for a couple years and then for a couple years he was the head coach at Morton Community College (The Salties.)

He then went back to NIU for the past three seasons.

The release from BG mentions two things about him.  First, he is a defensive strategist and second he was strong in player development.  Here is that paragraph:

Over his time in DeKalb, Watkins established a reputation in player development. Eugene German (2016-20) scored over 2,000 points under the watch of Watkins. German ranks fifth all-time in scoring in the MAC. Watkins played instrumental roles in the development of big men Lacey James (2017-20) and Levi Bradley (2015-19). By his senior year, Bradley was one of the most versatile scoring forwards in mid-major basketball, as he was shooting over 36.0 percent from downtown while averaging 14.4 points and 5.2 rebounds. From his freshman to senior year, Bradley more than doubled his scoring and rebound averages, while nearly tripling his assist average.

 

Welcome to Bowling Green, Brandon.