5 things to know about new Gamecocks assistant Bob Donewald Jr.
The South Carolina men’s basketball team has filled one of his assistant coaching vacancies.
The school announced the hiring of Friday of Bob Donewald Jr., who most recently worked at Ole Miss.
With the hire of Donewald, USC needs to fill one more assistant coaching position after Eddie Shannon and Will Bailey left the staff this offseason. Bailey has accepted an assistant coaching job at Loyola (Ill.).
The school also is expected to add a non-coaching staff position to the program, a USC athletics source told The State.
Here are five things to know about Donewald:
SEC experience
Donewald coached at two Southeastern Conference schools, Ole Miss and Texas, both under Chris Beard. He has been with the Rebels since 2023 and was at Texas, which is now in the conference, when they were a member of the Big 12. The Longhorns won the 2023 Big 12 Conference Tournament and reached the Elite Eight during his time there.
The Longhorns also signed a top-five recruiting class during his time there.
Donewald spent time at Texas Tech as an assistant and coach for player development.
NBA ties
Donewald has worked in the NBA with the Memphis Grizzlies organization and also with Charlotte (2001-02), New Orleans Pelicans (2002-03) and Cleveland Cavaliers (2003-04). With the Grizzlies, he was head coach of their NBA G-League team, the Iowa Energy, from 2014-16 and had seven players called up to the NBA.
Donewald spent three years (2001-04) as an assistant coach in the NBA in Charlotte (2001-02), New Orleans (2002-03) and Cleveland (2003-04).
Working with LeBron James
In Donewald’s lone year with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he had a chance to coach LeBron James in his rookie season.
According to published reports, Donewald was responsible for one-on-one training sessions with James during the summer before his rookie season. TThe coach talked about those sessions in a story with BBC.com.
“Every cut, every shot, every move he made — you’d have thought it was a Game 7 finals, the intensity with which he went,” Donewald said. “I’m trying to crush this kid in a workout just to teach him a lesson, and he is bringing it and bringing it.”
Olympic, overseas coaching
Donewald has extensive coaching experience overseas as well. He was the head coach of the Chinese National Team from 2010-12 and coached them in the 2010 World Championships, Asian Games and 2012 London Olympics.
The Chinese National Team captured the gold medal at the 2010 and 2011 Asian Games.
Other stops overseas include being the head coach of the PBC Lokomotiv Kuban in Russia. He also spent time in the Chinese Basketball Association as head coach of the Jilin Northeast Tigers, Shanghai Sharks and Xinjiang Flying Tigers. The Sharks were owned by former NBA player Yao Ming.
Donewald also coached in the British basketball league with the Leicester Riders, Derby Storm, Leicester Riders and London Leopards.
Coaching family
Donewald comes from a coaching family with his father Bob Donewald Sr. being a head coach in high school, then assistant for Bob Knight at Indiana before becoming a head coach at Illinois State and Western Michigan. His father led Illinois State to multiple NCAA Tournament appearances.
Donewald Jr. got his coaching start as an assistant coach for his father at Western Michigan.
This story was originally published April 10, 2026 at 10:16 AM.
