{"id":692084,"date":"2026-04-01T15:28:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/692084\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T15:28:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:28:16","slug":"tennessee-basketball-support-staff-member-following-justin-gainey-to-nc-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/692084\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Basketball Support Staff Member Following Justin Gainey To NC State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Dalton-Knecht-and-Riley-Collins.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-166983\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Dalton-Knecht-and-Riley-Collins.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"745\" height=\"483\"  \/><\/a>Photo via Tennessee Athletics<\/p>\n<p>Assistant Director of Player Development Riley Collins is leaving the Tennessee basketball program. Collins is following Justin Gainey to NC State as an assistant coach, a trusted source told RTI. Collins flew with Gainey and NC State brass to Raleigh on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Collins has been a part of Tennessee\u2019s program since the 2022-23 season, spending the first two seasons as a graduate assistant and the next two seasons as assistant director of player development.<\/p>\n<p>In his role, Collins was a key piece of Tennessee\u2019s player development program. He worked tirelessly with Volunteer players\u2014 most notably Dalton Knecht, Chaz Lanier and Bishop Boswell over the last three seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Collins was well respected inside the Tennessee program for his work ethic and relationship with players during his four-year stint in Knoxville.<\/p>\n<p>During Collins time at Tennessee, the Vols made the Elite Eight three times with one additional trip to the Sweet 16. The Vols also won the SEC Regular-Season Championship during the 2023-24 season. The 28-year old now gets his first full-time assistant coaching opportunity with former Tennessee associate head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CoachGainey\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Justin Gainey<\/a> at NC State.<\/p>\n<p>More From RTI:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rockytopinsider.com\/2026\/03\/30\/belmont-transfer-guard-tyler-lundblade-wraps-up-visit-with-tennessee-basketball\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Belmont Transfer Sharpshooter Visiting Tennessee Basketball Monday<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A New Jersey native, Collins had a standout playing career at Division III Drew University. He finished his four-year career as the program\u2019s all-time leader in points, assists and three-pointers made. Collins spent two years as a graduate assistant Division III Marymount in Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>Tennessee has lost two staffers in the first 72 hours of the offseason with both Gainey and Collins off to NC State.<\/p>\n<p>Rick Barnes\u2019 staff currently includes assistant coaches Steve McClain, Amorrow Morgan, Gregg Polinsky and Bryan Lentz.<\/p>\n<p>Support staffers includes Director of Basketball Operations Mary Carter-Eggert, Director of Men\u2019s Basketball Sports Performance Garrett Medenwald, Director of Player Personnel\/Recruiting Coordinator Lucas Campbell, Director of Video and Analytics Luke Schapker, Director of Strategy Scott Daughtry, Player Development Coordinator Justin Caldwell and graduate assistant Colin Coyne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo via Tennessee Athletics Assistant Director of Player Development Riley Collins is leaving the Tennessee basketball program. Collins&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,26200,7299,6726,1919],"class_list":{"0":"post-692084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-justin-gainey","10":"tag-nc-state-basketball","11":"tag-riley-collins","12":"tag-tennessee-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116330162139302572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}