Dex Yellow Pages might not have as many listings on the West Coast as Wyking Jones.
Jones, UNM's new assistant coach for men's basketball, comes to New Mexico boasting nearly a decade of experience and some heavy West Coast connections, head coach Steve Alford said.
Alford announced Jones' addition to the staff in a news conference Wednesday, nearly a month after former assistant coach Chris Walker accepted a position at Villanova.
Aside from his recruiting responsibilities, Jones will be crucial in developing the Lobos' post players.
The 6-feet-8-inch Jones played for Loyola Marymount from 1992-95 and spent his career in the paint. He'll add another coaching dimension that UNM lacked in the past. Alford, acting assistant coaches Craig Neil and Ryan Miller, and former assistant Walker played as guards during their hardwood careers.
"We kind of had the guard thing down," Alford said. "But we hadn't had a guy in there that had played inside. Now having somebody (like Jones), we have the best of both worlds."
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The Lobos, too, are somewhat familiar with Jones. He played at Loyola Marymount when Walker was an assistant there in the mid '90s. And Alford said that hiring someone with close ties to Walker will make for a smooth transition. That is especially important with a new evaluation period in recruiting starting on Monday.
Jones worked as a travel team manager with Nike for the past two years. One of his main responsibilities was tracking about 45 pre-collegiate teams, many of which were on the West Coast.
Many of the tournaments he covered in his previous job will be the same tournaments he will recruit at for the Lobos. He said that he knows, or has a relationship, with nearly all of the coaches on the West Coast, which is a major recruiting region for UNM.
Those connections will come in handy while filling the gaps in a relatively young team over the next couple years, Alford said.
"Right now in the 2010 class, if there was one dominant theme that we keep talking about as a hole to fill, it is size," he said. "I like our athleticism. I like our ability to shoot the ball. We need that anchor. We need to get that depth with size."
From 2002-06, Jones was an assistant coach at Pepperdine under head coach Paul Westphal. Over the five-year stretch, the team went 76-72 and appeared in the NCAA Tournament once.
Jones said he made the decision to come to New Mexico because of the positive things that he heard from Walker about Alford's open atmosphere and coaching approach.
"They have fun on their staff," Jones said. "Basketball is not curing cancer. It is what drives us, what motivates us, and it is a huge part of all of our lives, but, at the end of the day, you have to have fun with it. You can't take it too seriously, and Coach Walker expressed that there was this happy medium here, where he was allowed to enjoy his job, coach at a high level and learn the game from Coach Alford."
Fond memories of The Pit from his basketball career also led Jones to New Mexico. He recounted a story from his playing career, when, after playing in empty arenas in almost 15 exhibition games with the Double Pump All-Stars in the late '90s, Jones and his team arrived at The Pit.
"To get here and see 16,000 people here for an exhibition game, just blew me away," he said. "That has always left an impression on me."
And now Jones will look to share those memories with recruits in hopes of luring them to UNM's basketball program.
"What I am seeing is that a lot of people just don't know (about the program)," he said. "Once the word is out there, and they know how special this place is, and how much this place cares about basketball, it makes it a lot easier."
