New Georgia State basketball coach Jonas Hayes has loaded his staff with some familiar faces, one of them very familiar.
Hayes has retained his twin brother Jarvis, who spent three seasons as an assistant on Rob Lanier’s staff, and added Danny Peters, formerly an assistant at Xavier, and Allen Payne, formerly an assistant at Elon. The new director of operations will be Chaese Vaudrin.
“It goes without saying that these are talented individuals who can coach and recruit,” Jonas Hayes said. “In addition to that, I was looking for great people, positive people, great leaders of men who can bring out the best versions of our student-athletes.”
Jarvis Hayes played at the University of Georgia and had a 12-year professional career, including seven in the NBA. He was head coach of the Atlanta Celtics AAU team from 2015-18. He was an assistant coach at Morehouse in 2018-19 and joined the Georgia State staff in 2019.
Payne, a native of Cincinnati, was a three-year starter at Auburn and played a year of professional basketball in the United Kingdom. He was a graduate assistant at Xavier for two seasons before joining the staff at Elon, where he spent three seasons.
During his tenure at Elon, Payne focused on helping improve the team’s defense and saw the points allowed per game fall from 76.4 points to 65 points two seasons later.
Peters coached alongside Hayes at Xavier in 2021-22 and helped the Musketeers win the NIT championship. Before his lone season at Xavier, Peters spent a total of seven seasons at Arizona and four seasons at Ball State. He played four seasons at Ohio State.
Vaudrin spent one season as director of operations at Xavier. He spent two years with the Hoop Group, which conducts youth camps and tournaments.
“I think what we have is a group of men who will be pulling in the same direction to take Georgia State from a high level of success to even more,” Hayes said.
The Panthers added one player to the roster. Junior Dwon Odom, who played at St. Francis in Alpharetta, will transfer in from Xavier. A 6-foot-2 guard, Odom play 53 games and started 18 in two seasons, averaging 6.2 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists. He played 35 minutes and scored 18 points in the NIT Championship game against Texas A&M.
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