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John Putyrski, a native of Chicago, Illinois, was hired as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach for the BlueWave in August, 2023. He comes to Jacksonville after most recently serving as an assistant coach for the University of Texas at Arlington during the 2022-23 season. 

At UT-Arlington, Putyrski was primarily responsible for player development and opponent and recruit scouting. In his lone season, he led the on-court development of Western Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year Chendall Weaver.

Prior to UT-Arlington, Putyrski served as an assistant coach at his alma mater Illinois State University. He most notably led the 3-year on court development of 2021-22 Missouri Valley All-Conference leading scorer Antonio Reeves—a fellow Chicago native. Reeves has gone on to star at the University of Kentucky. 

In their 3 years together at Illinois State, Reeves saw yearly improvements in virtually all statistical categories with his points per game averages increasing from 7.2 in 2019-20, to 12.4 in 20-21, and ultimately a league leading 20.1ppg in 21-22. 

Putyrski was hired back to Illinois State as video coordinator in July 2019 after previously serving as a student manager for the program from 2011-2016. He was promoted to director of basketball operations before being elevated to an assistant coach during the 2021-22 season. In his variety of roles and in addition to his focus in player development, Putyrski ran much of the behind-the-scenes operations of the program including overseeing academics, budget, community service, film, scheduling, travel, and supervising the team’s staff of student managers. 

Before rejoining the Redbirds, Putyrski spent the 2018-19 season as an assistant coach at Eastern Florida State College. He helped lead the Titans to a 28-8 record as the team advanced to the quarterfinals of the NJCAA National Tournament. In just his first season as an assistant coach, Putyrski was named one of the top junior college assistants in the country by Coachstat.net and was praised for excelling in recruiting, teaching, game-planning, and player development. During his lone season at Eastern Florida, six of their players earned All-Conference honors and have gone on to excel at the Division I, II, and professional levels. Also in charge of overseeing academics at Eastern Florida, the team recorded a program-record 3.14 grade point average.

Prior to his time at Eastern Florida, Putyrski worked as a graduate assistant at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga from 2016 to 2018 where he assisted in the development of 2017 SoCon All-Conference Defensive Player of the Year forward Justin Tuoyo and All-Conference guard Tre McClean. 

As a student-manager for Illinois State, including serving as head manager for the 2015-16 season, Putyrski assisted in the development of several MVC All-Conference players: forward Jackie Carmichael and guard Tyler Brown (2012), forward Reggie Lynch and guard Daishon Knight (2015), and guard Devaughn Akoon-Purcell (2016). 

In his 12 years in college basketball, Putyrski has coached and worked with 35 players who have gone on to play professionally, including nine at the NBA and G-League levels. Putyrski is a 2016 Illinois State graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in nutrition and dietetics. He graduated from UT-Chattanooga in 2018 with a Master's degree in public administration.