New Bryant men’s basketball coach Jamion Christian’s teams have a distinctive style on the court. “We play fast, hard, and aggressive,” says Christian, whose path to Bryant has included coaching at both the collegiate and professional level.
Off the court, however, Christian weighs “soft skills” equally with work on things like practicing jump shots and setting up screens. “I'm a person who builds collaborative, supportive, competitive teams,” he says. “Everybody wants to be empowered as a person. Everybody wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And everybody wants to know how they can be better. It works whether you’re coaching pros or college kids.”
“Everybody wants to be empowered as a person. Everybody wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And everybody wants to know how they can be better. It works whether you’re coaching pros or college kids.”
Christian takes over a Bryant team riding the high of a America East championship and March Madness appearance, with the promise of making a successful team even better. He arrives with an impressive track record, with 18 years of collegiate coaching experience and two years of coaching at the professional level in Italy.
After helming Mount St. Mary's, Siena and George Washington, Christian led Italy's Pallacanestro Trieste to a Serie A2 championship and a return to the Italy's top league, Serie A, for the 2024-25 season. He posted a 41-24 record in his two seasons in Trieste.
At times when success was elusive — George Washington struggled to a 29-50 record in his three years as coach of the Revolutionaries — he was able to walk away with important lessons. “You can fool yourself into thinking that you are the environment wherever you go, but that’s just not the case,” he says.
Still, Christian takes pride in the fact that his George Washington teams beat two squads led by Hall of Fame coaches during his tenure. “I learned that our system works well enough that we could do that, which gives you confidence,” he says.
Christian's success has been earned through sacrifice: his wife and young children remained in the U.S. while he was coaching in Italy, and a desire to be reunited with his family played no small role in his decision to accept the head coaching position at Bryant.
“I'm really happy to get a chance to come back home and kiss my kids in the morning before I go to work,” he says. “Honestly, I’ve always loved Bryant: when I would come up to play, I would always tell my wife, ‘This place is growing so much.’ I'd come to a Bryant home game and see these incredibly passionate fans dressed in all white going crazy and all the new buildings being built on campus.”
Christian’s undergraduate degree in communications and rhetoric is an asset in team-building and leadership, but he also takes a businesslike approach to his job.
“Every time I've come into a program, I've done a 60-day SWOT assessment to get a sense of weakness and opportunities,” he says. “Everybody wants you to come in right away and start with big changes, but l learned from working at a consulting firm to assess before you make big decisions.”
Christian’s evaluation of Bryant basketball is still a work in progress, but he’s already figured out one important thing: Size matters, both tactically and in the heart of his players.
“The team were putting together will have probably have only one guy in the rotation that’s below six-foot-three,” he says. “That’s a strong blueprint.”
Christian says he wants his team to use that physical stature to rebound better and take more three-point shots. He also wants to build a team of “really good basketball players who are appreciative of being at Bryant, have an ambition to grow Bryant, and have a desire to grow our basketball team.”