After a successful two-year run as the head coach of the Saint Mary-of-the-Woods men’s basketball program, Jesse McClung joined the Valparaiso University men’s basketball staff as an assistant coach in March 2025.
Year 1 of McClung’s Valpo tenure in 2025-2026 saw the program record its best conference winning percentage and highest league win total since joining the Missouri Valley Conference in 2017. The team went 11-9 in MVC play, nearly doubling its conference win total for a second straight season, and notching the team’s first-ever winning season in Valley play. Overall, Valpo won 18 games including 17 regular-season contests in 2025-26, the program’s highest regular-season win total since its final season in the Horizon League in 2016-2017. Year 1 of McClung’s time on staff was Valpo’s first winning season overall since 2019-2020 and featured a 13-4 record at the Athletics-Recreation Center, the team’s highest home win total since 2016-2017.
McClung’s first season on staff was an underdog story in the sense that Valpo finished tied for sixth in the MVC and just one game out of a tie for third in a tightly-packed league after being picked last in the 11-team league in the preseason poll. Valpo ranked 325th nationally in Division-I experience as only three scholarship members of the team had played a D-I game prior to the season. Valpo finished the regular season at 150 in the KenPom after starting the season at 283, moving up 133 spots in the rankings, tied for the fourth largest improvement nationally.
The 2025-26 season saw Valpo sweep the regular-season series from UIC for the first time since the Flames joined The Valley, sweep the regular-season series from Indiana State for just the second time since joining The Valley, win a first-round MVC Tournament game over Indiana State to advance to the league quarterfinals, end a 10-game head-to-head losing streak to Bradley and squash an eight-game head-to-head skid to Drake while notching a road victory over the Bulldogs for the first time since 2018 en route to sweeping Drake for the first time since 2017-18.
McClung posted a 53-15 overall record and a 30-4 mark in River States Conference (RSC) play in his two-year stint leading the Pomeroys program. Under his leadership, SMWC made back-to-back NAIA men’s basketball national championship appearances, the only two in school history, highlighted by a Round of 16 appearance in Kansas City.
The 2024 RSC Coach of the Year, McClung instructed the RSC Player of the Year that season, guiding a team that had finished in last place to the best season in school history. In 2025, he led SMWC to victories over two nationally-ranked opponents in the first and second rounds of the NAIA Championships. The Pomeroys secured the outright 2025 RSC regular season crown and went on to claim the conference tournament title. McClung departed as the program’s all-time leader in career wins, single-season wins, RSC victories and winning percentage in all three categories.
Before taking the helm at SMWC, McClung served as the associate head coach at Marian University from 2017-2023, leading the team to six straight NAIA national tournament appearances including a 2019 Elite Eight and 2020 Final Four appearance. The team owned a 124-38 record, winning 77 percent of its games with McClung on staff. He recruited and developed seven NAIA All-Americans and the Crossroads League Defensive Player of the Year.
McClung was on staff at Division-III Wabash College as an assistant coach from 2011-2014. He previously served as an assistant at Marian from 2008-2011.
McClung graduated from Ball State University with a degree in communication studies before going on to earn a master’s in applied sociology from the University of Indianapolis. He began his collegiate playing career at Barton County Community College from 2001-2003 before playing at Ball State from 2003-2005 and finishing his playing career at UIndy during the 2005-06 season.
