JR Blount, the Dominican High School (Whitefish Bay) alumnus and longtime assistant coach in NCAA Division I men’s basketball, has landed his first head coaching job in Division I, hired March 9 by San Diego to lead its program.
Working under fellow Milwaukeean T.J. Otzelberger at Iowa State, Blount has helped the Cyclones emerge into an annual single-digit seed in the NCAA Tournament through the past five seasons, with a healthy dose of Wisconsinites on the roster.
San Diego, meanwhile, has been to the NCAA Tournament only four times in school history, and not since 2008. Under former UCLA coach Steve Lavin the past four years, the Toreros have just one winning season, going 12-21 in 2025-26 and 6-27 the year before that. San Diego is a Catholic school located in – well, you guessed it, San Diego.
Iowa State head coach T. J. Otzelberger, right and assistant coach JR Blount are shown during the first half of their first round NCAA men’ s basketball tournament game against Lipscomb Friday, March 21, 2025 at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Otzelberger went to St. Thomas More High School in Milwaukee and played at UW-Whitwater. Blount went to school at Dominican High School in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin.
San Diego is part of the West Coast Conference, which will notably lose Gonzaga to the re-fashioned Pac-12 next season. The league will welcome Denver next year and then add a cross-town rival, with UC-San Diego joining the fold in 2027.
“I’m incredibly honored and grateful for the opportunity to lead USD men’s basketball,” Blount said in a San Diego release. “This is more than just a coaching position for me — it’s a chance to become part of a community and build something meaningful. My wife and our three daughters are excited to make this move together and we can’t wait to invest in this university and the relationships that make it special.”
More: March Madness brings Milwaukee native JR Blount back to city as Iowa State assistant coach
Blount also spent three seasons as an assistant at Colorado State, and his resume includes time as a graduate assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, helping the Pointers win the 2010 NCAA Division III national title.
The three-year captain at Loyola University in Chicago won two Division 3 state titles as the top player on Dominican’s basketball team in 2004 and 2005. The latter team went undefeated and also topped Division 1 state champion Madison Memorial (led by future NBA player Wesley Matthews) and Division 2 state champion Racine St. Catherine’s (with future Division I players Devron Bostick and Cordero Barkley) during the regular season.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee native JR Blount hired as basketball coach at San Diego
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