Jay Shunnar - Men's Basketball Coach - University of Akron Athletics

Jay Shunnar

Title:
Associate Head Coach
Email:
jshunnar@uakron.edu

Jay Shunnar joined the Akron Zips men's basketball program in April 2026.

"He's going to bring a ton of value to us in the regard of having a ton of experience," head coach Dustin Ford said.

Prior to joining the Zips, Shunnar spent one season at North Texas as an assistant under Daniyal Robinson. In his lone season in Denton (2025-26), Shunnar helped guide the Mean Green to a 19-14 overall record and a 9-9 league record, tying for fifth in the American Conference and reaching the conference tournament quarterfinals. UNT's 19 wins were the second most in program history by a first year staff. Shunnar was also instrumental in the development of sophomore guard Je'Shawn Stevenson, who earned second-team All-Conference honors, and point guard David Terrell Jr., who had a breakout junior season. As well as recruiting the highest ranked freshman TJ Crumble and transfer Will McClendon.

Shunnar came to North Texas after spending three seasons on Robinson's bench at Cleveland State, where he helped guide the Vikings to three consecutive 20-win seasons, including 23 wins in his final year, the program's most in 14 years. CSU finished second in the Horizon League and was runner-up in the 2025 College Basketball Invitational.

During his time at Cleveland State, Shunnar was known for heading up their offense where they finished top 3 in league play two of his three seasons. Cleveland State ranked top 2 in the Horizon league for offensive and defensive efficiency in 2024-2025 season. The Vikings won 13 straight games from Dec 7.2024 through Jan.30,2025 their longest win streak in 28 years.

As lead recruiter in his three years at CSU, they had 13 Horizon All-League Honorees. They had four all league players Shunnar signing three of them Tevin Smith, Tahj Staveskie and Dylan Arnett.

Lastly, Shunnar played an integral role in the development of Cleveland Cavalier Tristan Enruna who went on to become NBA G- League Most improved player and sign a two-way contract with the Cleveland Cavalier in 2026. During his time at Cleveland State Tristan went on to have back-to-back First Team All-Horizon league seasons. His last season, he finished his career averaging 19.6 points per game which ended up being top 25 in the country.

Shunnar arrived at Cleveland State in 2022 from Butler, where he served two seasons as director of basketball operations under head coach LaVall Jordan. Before that, he spent a season in the NBA under John Beilein as a special assistant with the Cleveland Cavaliers, working closely with then-associate head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and helping develop guards Collin Sexton and two-time NBA All-Star Darius Garland. Shunnar also served on Beilein's staff at Michigan as a graduate assistant in 2018-19 before Beilein brought him to the NBA. Where they went on to the sweet 16.

From 2012 to 2018, Shunnar worked as a high school and AAU coach in southeast Michigan, including as head boys basketball coach at his alma mater, Ann Arbor Huron High School, from 2016-18.

The Ann Arbor, Michigan, native was a walk-on at Toledo, playing three seasons under head coaches Gene Cross and Tod Kowalcsyk from 2008-11. He later transferred to Michigan, where he earned an engineering degree and a master's degree in higher education and post-secondary education.