Point Park hired a new men’s basketball head coach, Joe Long, on Thursday. The head coaching job opened up after former head coach Ryan Grandits resigned to accept a head coaching position at his former institution, Daemen University.
Long joined the Pioneers as an assistant coach for the 2024-25 season and was able to lead Point Park to qualify for the Mountain East Conference championship tournament last month.
“The journey has been long,” Long said. “Obviously [a head coaching position] is what I have always wanted in my career.”
Before joining the Point Park staff, Long was the lead assistant at Gettysburg College, where the team went 21-8 and made it to the semi-final round in the Centennial Conference Tournament in his final season.
Gettysburg College was ranked eighth nationally in Division III this season and made it to the round of 32 in the NCAA Division III Tournament in 2025.
In 2023-24, Long was at another Division III school where he served as lead assistant for St. John Fisher University in Rochester, N.Y. The team went 18-9, and Long was credited with assisting in the development of the Empire 8 Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and two all-conference selections.
“It is really simple: When you have a group of guys who are going to go out there and work hard, you just put that in front of them,” Long said when asked how he develops players. “Players with incredible work ethics, [a] love of the game [and who are] bought into what you are trying to do and accomplish; that is when the development part gets a little easier.”
Before that season, he spent three seasons at Medaille University. Medaille, a small Division III college in Buffalo, N.Y., saw a great impact from Long once again as an assistant coach, helping Medaille reach the Division III national tournament in 2021-2022.
“One thing I have prioritized every single year as a part of this journey was what am I going to learn [and] what can I get out of it,” Long said.
Before Coach Long was assisting at the DII and DIII level, he spent time as a graduate assistant under future Hall of Fame head coach Leonard Hamilton at Florida State University in 2018-2019.
During this time, FSU reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA DI Tournament. The 2018-2019 season was Florida State’s best season since 1993.
Long also spent five years as the student manager of the men’s basketball program at West Virginia University, while completing his undergraduate studies. While there, he got the opportunity to work for another future Hall of Fame coach, Bob Huggins.
Coach Long took time to sit down and talk about what the hiring meant to him and what is ahead in the upcoming season.
“I am really excited about the opportunity to create something that Pittsburgh is going to be proud of,” Long said. “It’s like a dream come true. But at the same time, now we are going to set our eyes on and chase an MEC Championship and National Championship,” Long said. “I am super excited for the opportunity, but now we got more to do.”
Coach Long and the Pioneers have a long break before the start of basketball season, but with many things to get done and work for over the summer, Long aims to start a foundation to work from.
“We have a lot of work to do [in] recruiting,” Long said. “We are going to take this summer to really build and cement what our culture is going to be. We want to build something that is going to last longer than we are all here.”
On top of recruiting, Long shared that he plans to utilize the veteran players in the lineup.
“We got a decent amount of guys to come back, so there’s going to be more familiarity with what we got going on,” Long said. “I think we did a really good job of laying the foundation of what we are trying to create here at Point Park, and this last year really helped me out a lot.”
Long shared that the Pioneers will see several players return to the roster, including Jayden Davis, Grant Welch, Emeka Anwah and Osvaldo Biebrich.
“A lot of the guys are bought into what we are trying to accomplish, and the culture we have set,” Long said. “They know the journey is a long road, but the guys are committed to what we are trying to do.”
The combination of an up-and-coming coach and a great supporting cast will make Point Park a team to watch out for in the Mountain East Conference by the winter.
