Ray Harper added a familiar face to his Jacksonville State bench upon his arrival in 2016, hiring veteran coach Tommy Wade as an assistant with the Gamecock men’s basketball program in 2016.
Wade came to JSU from Saint Louis, where he was named the Billikens’ Director of Student-Athlete Development in April 2016. He went to SLU with head coach Travis Ford, for whom he served eight seasons as the Director of Player Development at Oklahoma State.
Wade returned to Harper’s side just under a decade after helping the JSU head coach as an assistant at Oklahoma City and Kentucky Wesleyan. He and Harper led OCU to back-to-back NAIA Division I championship seasons. With Wade's assistance, OCU went 95-17 with three NAIA national title game appearances, three Sooner Athletic Conference championships and two SAC Tournament titles in three seasons. He also coached six All-Americans.
Wade is part of a coaching staff that has averaged 18 wins per year since arriving in Jacksonville and twice broken the record for the program’s Division I single-season wins mark. Over the past nine seasons, Jacksonville State has tallied 146 wins, appeared in the seven conference postseason tournaments and three national postseason tournaments including the 2017 and 2022 NCAA Tournaments.
In 2023-24, Wade helped guide Jax State through its second league change in three seasons. After five seasons in the Ohio Valley Conference, Harper, Wade and the Gamecocks spent a brief couples of seasons in the ASUN (2021-22, 2022-23) before making the move the Conference USA. Wade helped the Gamecocks to a 14-18 record as first-year members of the league.
With Wade help, the 2021-22 transition into the ASUN Conference was a successful one as the program won its first Division I regular-season conference title with a 13-3 mark. JSU finished 21-11 overall, earning a trip back to the Big Dance for the second time in school history, both of which have come under Harper and Wade.
The 2021-22 team was a special one led by a veteran core that returned via Covid-19 eligibility with the goal of winning a championship. Senior Darian Adams, who garnered First-Team All-ASUN honors and was an NABC All-District selection, led the way with 477 points for the third-most in a single-season by a Gamecock. Fellow seniors Brandon Huffman and Kayne Henry were also a driving force averaging right at 10 points per game while being the top two rebounders for the season. Senior transfer Jalen Gibbs joined junior Demaree King to create the best outside duo threat in the country. King led the NCAA in three-point field goal percentage at 45 percent with a school-record 84 treys in a season, while Gibbs etched his name in the record books with a Div. I program record 40-point game at Elon. The team earned a 15-seed in the NCAA Midwest Region, where they fell to the Southeastern Conference champion and second-seeded Auburn Tigers in Greenville, S.C.
Along with the rest of the staff, Wade helped JSU navigate a difficult year in 2020-21 with the challenges that came from Covid-19. With limited preseason and even in-season interaction due to contact-tracing, JSU put together another strong year with an 18-9 record, reaching the semifinals of the OVC tournament. The Gamecocks dispatched OVC foe Murray State in all three meetings, winning at home, on the road and in overtime in the opening round of the OVC tournament in Evansville, Indiana.
Wade helped guide the Gamecocks to a program-best 24 wins in 2018-19, breaking Jacksonville State’s single-season wins total for a second year in a row. It marked the first time the program logged three straight seasons with 20-or-more wins since joining the Division I ranks. In addition, the 2018-19 season set a record-low for losses. Prior to the season, a JSU team had never finished a year with single-digits in the loss column.
In 2017-18, JSU scored a then-record 23 wins with Wade’s guidance. The Gamecocks qualified for their second national postseason tournament with a berth in the College Basketball Invitational. Jax State claimed wins over Canisius and Central Arkansas in the first and quarterfinal rounds, respectively, en route to its first ever wins in a major postseason tournament.
His first season at Jacksonville State saw the program earn its first Division I title, first appearance in the NCAA Tournament and first 20-win season since 2003. After being picked dead-last in the OVC Preseason Poll, the Gamecocks rattled off consecutive wins over Southeast Missouri, Belmont and UT Martin as the No. 4 seed to win the OVC Championships title. JSU went on to play Louisville in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament in Indianapolis at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
Prior to OCU, Wade was Harper’s assistant at Kentucky Wesleyan, which won the 2001 NCAA Division II championship, reached four national championship games, won three regular-season Great Lakes Valley Conference crowns, three conference tournament titles and posted four 30-win seasons in six years. Kentucky Wesleyan went 161-24 during Wade's tenure as an assistant.
Wade has coached as an assistant at OCU, Kentucky Wesleyan, Missouri State, Murray State, South Alabama and St. Catherine College in Kentucky. He began his coaching career at Hopkinsville University Heights Academy in Kentucky, where he directed the team to the Class A state championship in 1991.
Wade has been a part of three NCAA Tournament teams. At South Alabama, Wade aided in winning two Sun Belt Conference championships and two NCAA Tournament berths working as an assistant coach for Bill Musselman and Bob Weltich. Wade was also part of an Ohio Valley Conference championship team at Murray State.
A native of Hopkinsville, Ky., Wade was an all-state player at Hopkinsville High School as a senior in 1975. He played basketball at Murray State his freshman and sophomore seasons and transferred to Southeast Missouri State for his junior and senior years. His basketball career continued by playing professionally in Argentina for three years and one season in Europe before entering the coaching ranks.
Wade earned a bachelor's degree in physical education from Southeast Missouri State in 1992.
Updated October 2024
