Dannton Jackson - Men's Basketball Coach

Dannton Jackson

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
djack@uab.edu
Alma Mater:
Xavier University of Louisiana '92 / M'96
Experience:
4th season
Hometown:
Los Angeles, Calif.

Dannton Jackson begins his fourth season at UAB as an assistant coach under head coach Robert Ehsan.

In his first year in Birmingham, Jackson helped UAB continue to serve as one of the top defensive teams in the country during the 2016-17 season, ending the year first in Conference USA and 25th in the NCAA with 4.9 blocked shots per game.

Junior forward William Lee became the first player in school history to win the Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year award in consecutive seasons, finishing the year first in the league and 20th in the country with 2.4 blocks per game. Lee was also selected to the All-Conference USA Second Team, marking the third straight year in which he was named all-conference.

Lee is also only the fourth player in league history to be named Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year twice. In addition, Lee earned a spot on the All-Conference USA Second Team.

Jackson spent 13 seasons as the head coach at Xavier University of Louisiana New Orleans, winning 69.3 percent of his games with a career record of 294-130. Additionally, Jackson was 133-63 inside the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference and won five regular-season championships, including three straight from 2011-14.

Jackson guided the Gold Rush to its 10th appearance in the Buffalo Funds-NAIA Division I National Championship following the 2015-16 season, marking a school-record sixth consecutive season in which Xavier has earned a bid. He is the only men’s basketball coach in school history to reach the NAIA’s national tournament more than three times.

Jackson also guided Xavier to its school-record 16th consecutive winning season after finishing the 2015-16 season with a 21-13 record. He has also led the Gold Rush to 93 appearances in the NAIA Division I Coaches’ Top 25 Poll, which includes 68 appearances in 69 polls from Oct. 25, 2010-Jan. 19, 2016.

Jackson was tabbed the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference from 2012-14 and is the only coach to win the award in three consecutive seasons. He was also a court coach for the 2012 USA Basketball Men’s U18 National Team and president of the Louisiana Association of Basketball Coaches in 2008-09.

Prior to being named head coach at Xavier in 2002, Jackson was an assistant coach under Dale Valdery before being promoted to associate head coach for the 2001-02 season. He also served as an assistant coach with the women’s basketball team (1993-97), head coach of men’s and women’s cross country (1994-96) and interim athletics director in 2004 and 2013-14. Jackson also spent one season as a men’s basketball assistant coach at Virginia State University.

Jackson was a summer coach for an adidas-sponsored age-group travel team, the New Orleans Jazz, and he designs individual training regimens for local NBA players during their offseason. He also directed the Michael Jordan Basketball Camp in New Orleans, and he has served multiple years as summer hoops clinic director for New Orleans’ NBA franchise.

Two of Jackson’s Jazz players — New Orleanians DJ Augustin (Texas/Charlotte Bobcats) and Shan Foster (Vanderbilt/Dallas Mavericks) — were NBA draft picks in 2008. Augustin played for the Denver Nuggets in 2015-16. Another of Jackson’s Jazz players, Brandon Bass, played 10 NBA seasons. The 2014-15 season was the fourth for Bass with the Boston Celtics, but he entered 2015-16 on the Los Angeles Lakers’ roster.

Others Jackson coached with the Jazz included Glen “Big Baby” Davis — eight NBA seasons, including the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014-15 — Mo Williams of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Garrett Temple of the Washington Wizards and Tasmin Mitchell, who scored nearly 2,000 career points at LSU.

Jackson is a native of Los Angeles. He is a graduate of Sherman Oaks CES. Jackson was a basketball letterman at Xavier and earned his bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1992. He added a second XU degree, a master of arts in education administration, in 1996.