CONWAY, S.C. – Jason Allison and Brian Graves have joined the men's basketball coaching staff at Coastal Carolina University as assistant coaches, head coach Justin Gray announced on Monday.  
  
Allison spent the previous three seasons on the coaching staff at Drexel, and Graves was the associate head coach at Hampton last year. 
  
"We are extremely excited to have Coach Allison and Coach Graves join our staff," Gray said. "Each has the experience and knowledge that will help continue to move our program forward." 
  
Allison has 18 years of NCAA Division I coaching experience with previous stops at Appalachian State and VMI, as well as non-Division I programs King University and Lees McRae College, and two years of high school basketball.  He began his coaching career while he was a student at Liberty University, where he was a three-year letterman for coach Jeff Meyer.  
  
He got his first job at the Division I level at VMI in 2005, where he spent nine seasons, and helped lead the Keydets to 140 victories. Allison joined the coaching staff at Appalachian State for the 2014-15 season and remained with the Mountaineers for eight years. He was promoted to associate head coach in 2018-19. Allison helped recruit and retain the players who won the 2021 Sun Belt Conference championship.  
  
Allison has worked with and recruited six 2,000-point scorers and 13 1,000-point scorers. He has coached three different Defensive Player of the Year award winners in two different conferences. He's also coached a Big South Player of the Year winner (Stan Okoye, VMI), a two-time NCAA scoring leader (Reggie Williams, VMI), and many other all-conference selections.  
  
Graves, an assistant coach on Justin Gray's initial staff at Western Carolina, has been coaching at the Division I and II level since 2012, with one season as the head coach at Bryant and Stratton of the United States Collegiate Athletic Association, posting a 19-11 record in 2015-16.

A native of Newport News, Va., he returned to the Tidewater area the following season as an assistant coach at Hampton for two seasons, helping the Pirates claim a share of the 2017-18 MEAC regular season championship.  
  
Graves began his first of two stints at Longwood the following season before embarking on a two-year tenure at North Carolina Central, where he helped the Eagles win the 2019-20 MEAC regular season title before joining Gray at WCU for the 2021-22 season. The following year, he was named Director of Player Development at Longwood with subsequent seasons at Virginia State and a return to Hampton as associate head coach for the 2024-25 campaign. 
  
He began his collegiate coaching career at Catawaba, where he was a three-time all-conference player and led the Indians to three NCAA Division II Tournament appearances, in 2012 and served as associate head coach for three seasons.