Breaking Down NC State Head Coach Candidate Justin Gainey

NC State Athletic Director Boo Corrigan hopped on a plane and made three stops yesterday while searching for a new head coach for the men’s basketball team. The first stop was in St. Louis to interview Josh Schertz. Next, he flew to Chicago to interview Tennessee Associate Head Coach Justin Gainey, who is in the Windy City with the No. 6 seed Volunteers as they take on No. 1 seed Michigan this afternoon in the Elite Eight.

Gainey played point guard at NC State from 1996 to 2000 under Herb Sendek. He finished his career averaging 6.9 points and 2.7 assists per game. After playing professionally in Austria and France for two combined seasons and one season in the USBL in Pennsylvania, Gainey began his coaching journey at his alma mater. He started as an administrative coordinator at NC State in 2006 under Sidney Lowe. After two seasons in that role, he was promoted to Director of Operations for the 2008-09 season.

The following year, Gainey landed his first official assistant coaching position at Elon, located right down the road from his high school alma mater, Greensboro Day School. After one season, he used his ACC connections to become an assistant coach under former UNC forward Jason Capel at Appalachian State. While in Boone, Gainey also served as Director of Operations. Gainey and Capel were rivals in college, but they had been high school teammates for one season.

After four years in the North Carolina mountains, Gainey continued leveraging his connections with former ACC opponents, joining Marquette as Director of Operations under former Duke point guard Steve Wojciechowski from 2014 to 2017.

In 2017-18, Gainey moved to Santa Clara as an assistant coach under his former NC State head coach, Herb Sendek.

Next, he spent two seasons at Arizona as an assistant coach under Sean Miller. While Gainey was running the point at NC State, Miller had been an assistant coach under Sendek in Raleigh.

In 2020-21, Gainey returned to Marquette for one season as Wojciechowski’s associate head coach.

Gainey’s next move proved to be his last. In 2021-22, he was hired by Rick Barnes as an assistant coach at Tennessee. When Barnes coached at Clemson, he had faced Gainey when the latter was playing point guard for the Wolfpack. Barnes must have liked what he saw, as he promoted Gainey to associate head coach the following season—a role Gainey has held for the past five seasons.

Upon his promotion to associate head coach, Gainey was also given responsibility for Tennessee’s defense, which has flourished under his guidance. In three of the past four seasons, the Volunteers’ defense has ranked in KenPom’s top 10 in adjusted defensive efficiency, finishing 7th in 2022-23, 4th in 2023-24, and 9th this season.

While managing the defense, Gainey has also mentored Tennessee’s point guards. The team’s floor general over the past four seasons has earned All-SEC honors each year.

Barnes has been grooming Gainey to eventually become his replacement, but that hasn’t stopped the veteran coach from strongly endorsing Gainey for the NC State job.

“I hope he gets that job, because I don’t think anyone loves NC State more than Justin Gainey… If NC State knew what I knew, they’d be begging him to be their new head coach.”