Ryan Edwards begins his fourth season as a member of the Men’s Basketball Coaching Staff. Edwards’ duties include opponent scouting, practice planning, individual player development, camp coordination, and monitoring the academic progress of men’s basketball players.
In his first three seasons at LSUS, Edwards has helped guide the Pilots to three GCAC Tournament Championships, a regular season GCAC Championship in 2008, and a fifth consecutive appearance in the NAIA National Tournament. The Pilots have gone 78-22 (.780) in the three seasons that Edwards has been at LSUS, and that record does not include three exhibition wins over NCAA Division I opponents Northwestern State, McNeese State, and Centenary. Four of the players that Edwards has coached at LSUS have gone on to play professional basketball.
Edwards received a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from LSU in 2002 and a Master of Education in Sport Administration from Northwestern State University in 2004, accumulating a 4.0 GPA from both institutions. While at LSU, Edwards served as the head 7th grade boys’ coach at University Lab School for the 1999-2000 school year and the high school associate head coach from 2000-2002, winning the 2002 Louisiana Class 2A State Championship. While at University Lab, Edwards coached five future college basketball players including Glen “Big Baby” Davis, a current member of the Boston Celtics and NBA World Champion.
From 2002 through 2004, Edwards served as a graduate assistant at Northwestern State, where the Demons fielded the youngest Division I basketball team in the country for two consecutive years. After earning his Master’s degree, Edwards spent the 2004-2005 year as the administrative assistant for men’s basketball at the University of Texas Pan American where his primary responsibilities were coordinating team travel and summer basketball camps.
Ryan returned to Northwestern State for the 2005-2006 season where he served as an assistant coach under Coach Mike McConathy. With the same core group that had been the youngest team in America for two years, the Demons had a magical season winning the Southland Conference regular season championship and the Southland Conference Tournament Championship. The Demons posted the most wins in school history and came back from a 17-point deficit with 8 minutes to play to upset 3rd seeded Iowa in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The last-second game-winning shot won the Pontiac Game Changing Performance Award, which included a $105,000 donation to the general scholarship fund.
Ryan has been married to his wife Alice for four years, and they reside in Bossier City.
