The first week of the NCAA Tournament can be a whirlwind experience for anyone, with all the hoopla that comes with college basketball’s premier postseason event.
It’s even a bit more hectic when you get hired as a first-time head coach at a high-major program all while trying to help a national title contender prepare and gear up for March Madness.
That’s the reality Michigan assistant coach Justin Joyner has been living since last week, as he’s juggled two jobs on opposite sides of the country.
Joyner was introduced as Oregon State’s new men’s head basketball coach last Monday in Corvallis, Oregon. He spent most of Tuesday there, starting the onboarding process and connecting with Oregon State players and staff. He then took a red-eye flight and joined Michigan in Buffalo, New York, on Wednesday morning ahead of Thursday’s first-round game against Howard.
“It’s been great,” Joyner said. “I think the excitement around the (Oregon State) program is pretty high, and that’s what we’re doing here at Michigan. We want to finish this thing as strong as possible.”
As the Wolverines advance in the NCAA Tournament, Joyner said the plan is for him to spend the first couple of days of the week in Corvallis getting acquainted with the team, assessing the program and building relationships before meeting Michigan at its next stop — this week it’s Chicago — and continuing his role on head coach Dusty May’s staff.
With the transfer portal window being pushed back to April 7, opening the day after the national championship game, that allows Joyner to stick around and finish the job instead of having to leave right away and immediately turn his attention to assembling a roster.
Still, there will be matters Joyner will have to tend to. May called Joyner, 38, a “superstar in the making” and acknowledged Joyner is going to be preoccupied at times taking calls to fill out his own coaching staff.
“I think Dusty and this team and the staff have done a great job of covering for me a little bit, to be honest,” Joyner said. “We have such a good staff, and they’re so confident and good at their jobs that I think we won’t necessarily miss a beat with some of my absences.”
Joyner has been on May’s staff since he was hired at Michigan and said these past two years have helped him grow “a ton” as a coach. Before arriving in Ann Arbor, he spent seven seasons on Randy Bennett’s staff at Saint Mary’s, the two last as associate head coach.
At Michigan, Joyner has been involved in all aspects of the program, but he’s been instrumental on the defensive end along with assistant coach Mike Boynton Jr. Together, the two have overseen a defense that ranks among the nation’s best in KenPom’s defensive efficiency.
“I think this has been a great situation for me, and I think anybody on our staff would say the same,” Joyner said. “Working with the people that we work with, working for Dusty and working with the student-athletes that we get to work with, we’ve built a great roster in the first couple years. Our ability to be adaptable in today’s climate has been important for our success, and it gets back to players. We have great players, we have unselfish players, we have guys that are about the unit, and that’s why it’s been such a great experience.”
That said, Joyner couldn’t pass on the head job at Oregon State for two main reasons. For starters, he grew up in California and always “loved and respected” the Pac-10 before it expanded to the Pac-12 in 2011, nearly dissolved in 2023 and rebuilt with nine members starting this July, including schools like Colorado State, Gonzaga, San Diego State and Utah State.
With the leadership at the institution and within the athletic department, Joyner feels Oregon State is in a good spot “in terms of the commitment to being successful in basketball” moving forward.
The other key reason is being closer to family. His wife, Tracy, is the women’s soccer head coach at Oregon, and the two have a young daughter together. Eugene is less than a 50-mile drive from Corvallis and not across the country like Ann Arbor.
“The opportunity to go into a great basketball league and work our way toward the top of that league in a quick manner is exciting and challenging at the same time,” said Joyner, who drew interest for other job openings. “Being within 45 minutes of Eugene, where my wife and my daughter are, was really enticing as well.”
While Joyner and his wife have had to make sacrifices while pursuing coaching careers at the high-major level, Joyner credited his wife for easing the burden on the long-distance family dynamic.
There are times when she’ll meet him on the road during Michigan’s season. And there are times where she’ll spend chunks of time in Ann Arbor during her offseason, with women’s soccer being a fall sport and men’s basketball a winter sport.
“It’s been difficult with them being so far away,” Joyner said. “My wife is a rock star in her ability to navigate both and she’s certainly better than me in that way. We spend as much time as we can together. And my daughter being young — she just turned 3 — makes it a little bit easier in some ways, because she’s still growing and she’s not in school yet. It’s a blessing to get back and be a family together.”
Joyner is also thankful for the lessons he’s learned and knowledge he’s gained while working alongside head coaches like Bennett and May as well as Boynton, who guided Oklahoma State’s program for seven seasons from 2017-24.
He called Bennett the “most consistent human” he’s ever been around, a reason he built Saint Mary’s into the program it is today during his 25-year run. He cited May’s “elite” ability to adapt to his personnel and build a successful game plan while being “as good as anybody” in the X’s and O’s department. He described Boynton as “the best people manager” he’s ever been around.
“I think all three of those guys possess some great qualities,” Joyner said, “and it’s my goal to pull from each of those guys.”
That should serve him well in the next chapter of his coaching journey. But before that begins in earnest, he’s focused on finishing a memorable chapter at Michigan with a national title.
“Sorting out what’s going to happen and how we’re going to build a roster and a staff over at Oregon State has been very important to me,” Joyner said. “But at the same time, I’m making sure that I’m locked in with this group on our special run. I think we’ve got the team, the personnel and the staff to do it.”
NCAA Tournament
NO. 1 MICHIGAN VS. NO. 4 ALABAMA
What: Sweet 16 NCAA Tournament game
When: Friday, 7:35 p.m.
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: TBS/TruTV
Records: Michigan 33-3, Alabama 25-9
jhawkins@detroitnews.com
@jamesbhawkins
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Michigan assistant Justin Joyner juggling 2 jobs during NCAA Tournament run
Reporting by James Hawkins, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
