Middle Tennesee State University Athletics
Men's Basketball
- Title:
- Assistant Coach
- Email:
- wes.long@mtsu.edu
- Phone:
- 898-2178
Twitter: MT_CoachWesLong
The 2024-25 season marks Wes Long’s seventh season on head coach Nick McDevitt’s staff at Middle Tennessee, and third as the program’s Associate Head Coach. Long serves McDevitt’s program as the team’s defensive coordinator.
As the team’s defensive coordinator, Long has coached Teafale Lanard, Jr. to the CUSA All-Defensive Team in 2023 and guided Lenard, Jr. and Chris Loofe to the CUSA All-Freshman Team in 2022 and 2024, respectively.
The 2023-24 season had a hot start, going undefeated on an Italian summer tour, earning two nominees to the Preseason All-CUSA team and being picked to finish at the top of the league in the conference preseason poll. The Blue Raiders won 8 of their final 14 contests, including an upset of the second-seeded LA Tech Bulldogs in the CUSA Championship Quarterfinals.
During the 2022-23 season, Middle Tennessee set the season record for blocks average (4.8) and total blocks (159) en route to the CUSA Championship semifinals, falling to eventual Final Four participant Florida Atlantic. The program also set the record for the most blocks in a single game against Belmont (12/10/22) with 13 in the 85-75 overtime win.
The 2021-22 campaign also saw a new defensive program record set, with the team snatching 295 steals throughout the season. The squad also racked up the second-most blocks in program history with 158. MTSU earned a 26-11 record during the season, won the Cancun Challenge Maya Division championship, the CUSA East Division title and advanced to the finals of the 2022 CBI.
Prior to joining the Blue Raider program in 2018, Long spent one season aiding McDevitt in his final season at UNC-Asheville. In his lone season at Asheville, Long helped the Bulldogs claim 21 wins, the Big South regular season conference championship, and an automatic berth to the NIT.
Long arrived at Middle Tennessee in 2018 as no stranger to Murphy Center, as he sat on opposing benches and faced the Blue Raiders in past seasons as an assistant at both VCU and Chattanooga.
Preceding the 2017-18 season at UNC-Asheville, Long spent two seasons as an assistant coach at VCU from 2015 to 2017. The Rams compiled a 51-20 record during Long’s tenure on the bench, including back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, a regular season Atlantic 10 championship, two A10 Tournament championship game appearances, and a NCAA Tournament win over Oregon State.
At VCU, Long served as position coach for Rams point guard JeQuan Lewis and helped the Dickson, Tenn. native earn First Team All-Atlantic 10 honors as a senior in 2017. Coach Long served as the position coach for VCU big man Mo Alie-Cox, who finished his career as Virginia Commonwealth’s all-time leader in field goal percentage. Alie-Cox has been a member of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts since 2017, and the VCU star turned NFL tight end recently signed a three-year contract through 2024 with the Colts.
Prior to his two years in Richmond, Long spent two seasons just down Interstate 24 from Murfreesboro as an assistant at Chattanooga. The Mocs totaled 40 wins in Long’s two campaigns in the Scenic City, twice finishing second in the Southern Conference and making a trip to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament in 2014. Long helped recruit and build the Chattanooga team, which in the year following his departure to VCU, won a school record 29 games and both the SoCon regular season and tournament titles.
Before becoming a Division I assistant, Coach Long spent a total of nine seasons at then Division II Queens University of Charlotte, where he served as the Royals’ head coach for the last five campaigns. He first came to Queens as a graduate assistant in 2004 and held that position for two seasons. In addition to cutting his teeth as a young recruiter and floor coach, Long implemented a comprehensive student-athlete academic success plan during those two years. Long was promoted to the full-time assistant position and recruiting coordinator at Queens in 2006, and subsequently helped head coach Brian Good lead the Royals to back-to-back 20-win seasons and two NCAA DII Tournament berths. After helping Good achieve a 72-45 record over four years and earn a new job, Long was promoted to head coach of the Queens program in June 2008.
Coach Long’s five-year tenure as head coach at Queens was marked by an incremental rebuilding job which culminated in back-to-back Conference Carolinas regular season titles in 2011 and 2012. His 2011 championship team advanced to the second round of the NCAA Division II Tournament. After an initial 7-21 head coaching debut season, Long’s Queens teams earned a 55-30 record over his final three years in Charlotte. He recruited and coached the top two scorers in program history at Queens, and his student-athletes recorded five of the seven highest cumulative team GPAs in program history.
Long’s 20-year coaching career has included stints at five different schools, and a track record of helping to build each program he has served to a championship level. Including the 2021-22 NCAA record 21-game, one-year win total turnaround and CUSA East Division championship at Middle Tennessee, Long has helped to lead each program at all five institutions he has worked to championships and post-season berths. As an assistant to three different head coaches, Long has helped that trio of men earn four separate promotions to new jobs at higher-level programs.
The Mauldin, S.C., native played as an undergraduate at Clemson, joining the Tigers in 2000-01 as a walk-on before later moving into a role as a student assistant.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in business management from Clemson in 2004 before adding a M.B.A. from Queens’ McColl School of Business in 2007.
Coach Long resides in Murfreesboro with his wife, Martha, a Columbia, Tenn. native. The couple has two daughters, Abigail and Emma, and two sons, Canaan and Elijah.
