Former University of Virginia men's basketball manager and William & Mary director of basketball operations
Luke Ford joined the Longwood men's basketball staff as director of recruiting and program development in May of 2019.
Ford came to Longwood after spending five seasons on head coach Tony Shaver's staff at William & Mary where he managed a wide area of responsibility for a program that posted a 90-67 overall record and a 54-36 Colonial Athletic Association record during his tenure.
With the Tribe, Ford was charged with overseeing the program's overall quality control along with travel, tech support, marketing, camps, business operations and compliance, as well as oversight of numerous major facility projects and recruiting materials. He also earned coaching experience in the 2018 offseason, taking on assistant coach responsibilities following a 2017-18 season in which William & Mary went 19-12 overall and 11-7 in the CAA.
Ford's time at William & Mary came under Shaver, the former Hampden-Sydney head coach who mentored Aldrich both as a player from 1993-96 and a coach during the 1999-2000 season.
Ford brings a versatile skillset to Longwood's program with an emphasis on technology and data-driven analysis of in-game and practice performance. In his young career, he has used those skills to develop metrics to gauge effectiveness of specific player combinations on the court, boost RPI rankings through scheduling strategies, and real-time in-game analytics.
A 2014 graduate of the University of Virginia, Ford began his college basketball career in one of the most successful and well-respected programs in the nation as a student manager with Tony Bennett's Cavaliers. In three years on that managerial staff, Ford helped Virginia make one of the most dramatic climbs in the nation, going from a 22-10 record and a fourth-place ACC finish in 2011-12 to a 30-7 mark, an ACC Championship and an NCAA Sweet Sixteen run in 2013-14.
Ford served as the Cavaliers' head manager during his senior year, aiding the program in recruiting, practice operations and film breakdown. He received his Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Virginia in 2014, and then went on to serve as director of men's basketball operations at UMBC in 2014, where two years later Aldrich and head coach Ryan Odom would begin the resurrection of that program.
A former team captain at Albemarle High School in Albemarle, Va., Ford tailored his coursework at Virginia to suit his coaching aspirations, undertaking studies in statistical analysis, psychology in sports and exercise, leadership, and management and accounting, as well as undertaking an independent study in basketball analytics.
