Steven Whitley enters his fourth season on the NSU men’s basketball coaching staff in 2024-25 as the Director of Basketball Operations, second as an assistant coach.
After spending two years as the team’s director of basketball operations, Whitley was promoted to the position of assistant coach ahead of the 2023-24 campaign. He made an immediate impact in the new role, helping the Spartans win the first nonconference postseason championship of the program’s Division I history.
Norfolk State notched its third consecutive 20-win season in 2023-24, amassing a 24-11 overall record. The Spartans clinched the MEAC regular season title with an 11-3 mark in conference play, before earning the program’s first-ever Division I nonconference postseason championship, erasing an 18-point deficit to take down Purdue Fort Wayne 75-67 in the CollegeInsider Tournament (CIT) championship game.
The MEAC Player of the Year award went to a Norfolk State student-athlete for the third consecutive year, given to NSU guard Jamarii Thomas. The junior also received the MEAC Newcomer of the Year accolade, while his backcourt teammate Allen Betrand took MEAC Sixth Player of the Year honors.
The Spartans posted a 22-11 overall record in 2022-23, earning the team’s fourth consecutive appearance in the conference championship game. Joe Bryant Jr. was named the MEAC Player of the Year for the second straight campaign, receiving First Team All-MEAC honors alongside teammate Kris Bankston. Both players were also selected to the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament (PIT) after the season’s conclusion.
In his first year of the position, Whitley helped lead the Spartans through a historic season. The team compiled a 24-7 record, the highest win percentage (77.4) in the program’s Division I history, going 12-2 in the MEAC to take the regular season title. The Spartans won the MEAC Tournament Championship for a second consecutive year, earning another berth in the NCAA Tournament.
Led by MEAC Player of the Year Bryant and a total of three All-MEAC selections (first-teamer Bryant, second-teamer Bankston and third-teamer Jalen Hawkins), NSU posted the best-ever start to a season for a MEAC team in the league’s Division I era, at 9-1.
Prior to joining the Norfolk State coaching staff, Whitley enjoyed a distinguished playing career at NSU. He joined the 1,000-point club despite playing just three seasons with the program, after starting his career at Robert Morris.
Whitley earned third-team All-MEAC honors in both his redshirt junior and redshirt senior seasons, leading the Spartans to a 14-2 conference record in the former. He averaged 10.1 points, 5.2 rebounds, a team-best 3.2 assists and 1.5 steals per game in his final year and helped lead the Spartans to an 80-79 overtime upset over Alabama in the NIT First Round as a redshirt junior.
In his first season at NSU, Whitley was named Team MVP after averaging a team-best 12.2 points, 4.7 assists and 1.6 steals per contest. He recorded a career-high 27 points against Hampton, shooting 12-of-16 (75 percent) from the field and dishing four assists.
Whitley graduated from Norfolk State in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in business management.
