LOS ANGELES – Janell Jones, who has accumulated 260 victories in previous stints at Mercer, UC San Diego and Oklahoma City, has been named the head women’s basketball coach at Cal State L.A., Director of Athletics Dan Bridges announced on Wednesday.
Jones, who has spent the past three seasons at Division I Mercer, will be returning to the California Collegiate Athletic Association, where she compiled a 50-10 record in two seasons at UC San Diego and guided the Tritons to a conference title and a national semi-finals appearance in 2007. She has a career record of 260-80 at Mercer, UC San Diego and Oklahoma City, where she won two NAIA national championships, was a national runner-up three times and was named the NAIA Coach of the Year two times in her five seasons as the head coach.
“We are delighted that Janell Jones will be joining our coaching staff,” Bridges said. “She has had tremendous success throughout her career and we are looking forward to her developing an outstanding women’s basketball program at Cal State L.A.”
Jones took over a Mercer program that had a 5-25 record in 2006-07. Two seasons later, she guided the Bears to a 17-14 record and its highest win total since 1992. Mercer enjoyed the biggest RPI turnaround in the country, jumping from No. 315 at the conclusion of the 2007-08 season to No. 162 in the final week of the 2008-09 campaign.
Mercer was 14-16 overall and 11-9 in Atlantic Sun Conference play last season, which was its best conference mark since 2004. The Bears earned the No. 2 seed for the Atlantic Sun Tournament, which was its highest seeding since 1991. The Bears also had a first-team All-Conference player for the first time since 2002 and a first-ever conference Defensive Player of the Year.
“I am excited to be back in the CCAA and I look forward to the opportunity to build the Cal State L.A. women’s basketball team into a championship program,” Jones said.
Jones joined Mercer after two years at UC San Diego, where she led the Tritons to 50 wins and a pair of NCAA Division II Tournament appearances. The Tritons hosted and won the West Region championship in 2007 and advanced to the national semi-finals for the first time at the Division II level where they lost to eventual champion Southern Connecticut State, 57-53. Jones was named the CCAA Coach of the Year in 2007.
Prior to UC San Diego, Jones was the winningest coach in Oklahoma City University history. She was part of four NAIA Division I national championships teams, two as a head coach and two as an assistant coach. She had an overall record of 175-14 (.926) in five seasons as the head coach and her squads never finished a season with fewer than 32 victories.
She joined Oklahoma City as an assistant coach in 1998 and promptly helped the Stars win their first of four straight national titles.
Before joining the Oklahoma City staff, she was an assistant coach at Oral Roberts in Tulsa, Okla. That followed a three-year career as the head basketball coach at Carl Albert High School in Midwest City, Okla. She compiled a 69-13 record and led the Titans to the 1996 Oklahoma City Class 5A State Championship. Her program produced three NCAA Division I players.
Jones earned a bachelor’s degree in science education, summa cum laude, from Oklahoma Christian University, where she was a member of the women’s basketball team. She completed a master’s degree in educational leadership, summa cum laude, from Southern Nazarene University.
Jones has one son, Kyle Jones, who is currently a graduate student at Mercer University Medical School in the Nurse Anesthesia Program.