-- Stanford’s Jerod Haase and Yale’s James Jones Named Assistant Coaches --

TCU head coach Jamie Dixon, who led the USA to gold at the 2009 U19 World Cup to end a USA 18-year drought between FIBA U19 World Cup titles, has been selected to serve as the 2021 USA Basketball Men’s U19 World Cup Team head coach. Stanford University head coach Jerod Haase and Yale University head mentor James Jones complete the coaching staff as 2021 USA U19 assistant coaches. 

Trials to select the 12-member USA U19 World Cup Team will be held June 20-22 at TCU, and trials invitees will be announced at a later date. 

The coaching staff was chosen by the USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team Selection Committee. 

“We are excited about the staff for our U19 team this summer led by Jamie Dixon,” said USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team Committee chair Matt Painter. “Jamie has already led the U19’s to a gold medal in ’09 and we are also very fortunate to have two experienced coaches round out the staff in James Jones and Jerod Haase.”  

Featuring U19 teams from 16 nations, the 2021 FIBA U19 World Cup is scheduled to be held July 3-11 in Riga and Daugavpils, Latvia. In addition to the USA and host Latvia, teams that will take part in this summer’s U19 World Cup include Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, France, Japan, Lithuania, Mali, Puerto Rico, Senegal, Serbia, South Korea, Spain and Turkey. 

The USA was drawn into Group D, alongside Australia, Mali and Turkey for the July 3-6 FIBA U19 World Cup preliminary round. The USA will open play against Turkey on July 3, followed by Mali on July 4 and close preliminary play against Australia on July 6. 

Reigning FIBA U19 World Cup gold medalist, USA men’s teams have won seven gold medals, three silver medals and one bronze medal while compiling an 98-14 overall record in U19 World Cup play since the event was launched in 1979. Even more impressive, the USA has won four of the past six U19 golds since 2009. 

The USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team Committee, chaired by Purdue University head coach Painter, also includes Shane Battier, athlete representative, University of Virginia head coach Tony Bennett; Providence College head coach Ed Cooley and Sean Miller, 2015 U19 World Cup gold medalist head coach.

Jamie Dixon

Dixon led the 2009 USA Basketball U19 team to the FIBA World Championship gold medal and a 9-0 record in Auckland, New Zealand. It was the USA’s first U19 World Cup championship since 1991. Featuring collegiate standouts Seth Curry, Gordon Hayward, Tyshawn Taylor, Klay Thompson and others, Dixon’s USA team averaged 88.2 points a game, and it’s average margin of victory in its nine wins was 22.2 points per game. For his golden effort, Dixon was tagged as the recipient of the 2009 USA Basketball National Coach of the Year Award, and his U19 squad earned USA Basketball's 2009 Team of the Year Award.

Dixon completed in 2020-21 his fifth season at TCU (2016-17 to present) and has compiled an overall record of 96-71 record (.575 winning percentage). All told, in 18 seasons as head coach he has earned a 424–193 record (.687 winning percentage) while making 16 post-season appearances, including 12 NCAA Tournaments.

“It’s an honor to be back coaching USA basketball,” said Dixon. “I’m excited to work with two great coaches in Jerod Haase and James Jones as we assemble the best team possible to represent USA at the FIBA World Cup.”

In his first season at TCU, Dixon led the Horned Frogs to the 2017 NIT Championship, their first postseason tournament title. In his second season, Dixon led TCU back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 20 seasons.

Dixon, a 2007 TCU Hall of Fame Inductee, returned to his alma mater on March 22, 2016, after serving 13 seasons as head coach at the University of Pittsburgh. He has earned four college basketball National Coach of the Year honors, including the 2009 Naismith Coach of the Year.

Dixon's 13-year head coaching tenure at Pitt saw the Panthers compile a 328-123 record and earn 11 NCAA Tournament berths, including three Sweet 16 appearances and one NCAA Regional Final, and two NCAA Tournament No. 1 seeds in 2009 and 2011. 

Dixon guided Pitt to three Big East Championships, including two outright regular-season titles and one tournament championship. He set an NCAA Division I all-time record for best start to a coaching career after eight seasons with 216 victories. In addition, his .658 career Big East win percentage ranks as the best all-time mark in league play. He is one of only nine coaches in NCAA Division I history to win over 100 games during his first four seasons of a coaching career and helped Pitt capture the program's first No. 1 national ranking in 2008-09.

His coaching experience also includes assistant coaching stints at Pitt (1999-2003), Hawaii (1998-99 and 1992-94), Northern Arizona (1994-98), and UC Santa Barbara (1991-92).

Dixon played at TCU and helped lead the Horned Frogs to Southwest Conference titles as a junior and senior. He earned All-SWC honors in 1987 and was an All-SWC Academic honoree. In addition, he led the SWC in assists as a senior and was voted TCU's Senior Male Scholar-Athlete Award recipient. 

Dixon was selected in the 1987 NBA draft by the Washington Bullets. He went on to play professionally with the Lacrosse Catbirds of the Continental Basketball Association and also in New Zealand.

Jerod Haase

Completing in 2020-21 his fifth season as head coach of the Stanford Cardinal, Haase is taking on his first USA Basketball coaching assignment. As a player, Haase participated in the 1995 USA National Team Trials that were used to select the 1995 USA World University Games Team.

“Being asked to coach and represent our country in the upcoming FIBA U19 World Cup is a great honor,” said Haase. “I am very appreciative of the opportunity that USA Basketball has given me, and I look forward to helping Coach Dixon in our pursuit for a gold medal.” 

In his first five seasons at Stanford, Haase has led teams to an 82-73 (.529 winning percentage) record and in nine seasons overall as a head coach owns a 162–126 (.563) record.

Stanford finished 20-12 overall in 2019-20, and remained in contention for an NCAA Tournament berth throughout a season shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Boasting the nation's No. 16-ranked scoring defense, the Cardinal 20 wins marked Stanford's first such season since 2014-15.

In 2017-18, Haase guided Stanford to a third-place finish in the Pac-12 with 11 conference wins, the program’s highest finish and most league victories in 10 seasons. Stanford won 19 games overall and earned a postseason berth for the first time in three years with a second-round appearance in the NIT.

As head coach at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, Haase compiled an 80-53 overall record in four seasons (2012-13 to 2015-16), improving the Blazers’ win total every year, while advancing teams to one NCAA Tournament and one NIT. He led the Blazers in 2015-16 to a 26-5 overall record and a 16-2 conference mark while capturing their first regular-season title since 2011. For he efforts he was tabbed the 2016 Gene Bartow Conference USA Coach of the Year and was also named the 2016 National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) All-District Coach. In 2015 he directed UAB to an upset of No. 3 seed Iowa State 60-59 in the second round of the NCAA tournament and claimed the program’s first Conference USA Tournament title.

Haase played for Roy Williams at Kansas and spent 13 years on Williams’ staff with the Jayhawks and at North Carolina. He got his start as Kansas’ Director of Operations from 1999-2003. During that time, the Jayhawks reached the 2002 Final Four and the national championship game in 2003. He stayed with Williams when he went to North Carolina in 2003-04 as an assistant coach and director of operations, a title Haase held until 2009. He then served exclusively as an assistant coach during his final three seasons with the Tar Heels.

Haase attended the University of California in 1992-93, then transferred to Kansas, where he helped lead the Jayhawks to three consecutive conference titles and finished his career ranked in the school’s top 10 in assists, 3-point field goals and steals. As a sophomore in 1994-95, 

Haase was named the Big Eight Conference Newcomer of the Year and also tabbed a second-team all-conference selection. He was also a first-team GTE Academic All-American as a senior, a second-team Academic All-American as a junior and a three-time academic all-conference pick and the Jayhawks' Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 1997.

James Jones

Jones is Yale’s all-time winningest men’s basketball coach and brings prior USA Basketball coaching experience as an assistant coach for the February 2021 USA Basketball AmeriCup Qualifying Team, 2007 USA Basketball Men’s Pan American Games Team and as a court coach for the 2006 USA Men’s U18 National Team Trials.

“It’s an honor to have been selected to represent the United States and USA Basketball for the FIBA U19 World Cup,” said Jones. “I’m looking forward to working with Jamie Dixon and Jerod Haase, and I’m excited to work with the athletes who will represent our country.”

While Yale and the Ivy League opted out from playing the 2020-21 season, Jones is the longest tenured coach in the Ivy League and has compiled a 333-280 career record (.543 winning percentage). He has guided the Bulldogs to five Ivy League championships (2002, 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2020), three NCAA Tournament berths (2016, 2019 and 2020) and six postseason appearances. Currently ranking second for most overall wins in league history and third for Ivy League wins (180), his .612 winning percentage in Ivy games is the highest in Yale school history.

Over the last six seasons, Yale compiled a remarkable 63-21 Ivy record, won four league titles and earned three NCAA Tournament berths, including notching the first NCAA victory in school history.

Inducted into New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015, he was named the 2019 recipient of the Ben Jobe Award as the top minority coach in Division I men's basketball. He is a three-time Ivy League Coach of the Year (2015, 2016, 2020) and also has been named the NABC District 13 Coach of the Year three times. 

Yale won at least 10 Ivy games six times during Jones’ tenure and have had a fourth-place or better finish in the Ivy League for a remarkable 20 straight years. He has led Yale to the postseason six times – the 2020 NCAA Tournament, the 2019 NCAA Tournament, the 2016 NCAA Tournament, the 2012 and 2014 CollegeInsider.com Tournament and the 2002 NIT.

In 2019-20, Jones led Yale to 23 victories, tying his 2015-16 team for the most in the modern era of Yale Basketball, and an Ivy League championship for the fourth time in the last six years. The Bulldogs were set to play in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year before it was canceled due to the COVID-19 public health threat.

Jones directed Yale in 2015-16 to the most successful season in school history. Yale won 23 games, the most since 1906-07, captured a second straight Ivy League title with a 13-1 record, matching the 1961-62 team for the best in school history, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 54 years where the Bulldogs upset Baylor to earn Yale’s first NCAA Tournament victory .

In June of 2016, The National Association of Basketball Coaches selected him for an ad hoc committee on NCAA men's basketball tournament selection, seeding and bracketing, and in 2018 he was selected to coach the East Squad at the Reese's College All-Star game.

An assistant coach at Yale for two seasons from 1995-97, Jones returned to Yale as head coach after two years as an assistant coach at Ohio University. Jones served as an assistant basketball coach for five seasons (1990-95) at his alma mater, the University at Albany (N.Y.). In his final two coaching seasons at Albany, he helped lead the team to a 44-11 record and two appearances in the NCAA Tournament, including reaching the Elite Eight in 1993-94.

Graduating from Albany in 1986, Jones was captain of the freshman team and was selected as the team’s Freshman of the Year. He played for and coached with the legendary Richard “Doc” Sauers.