Alford announces staff additions for Nevada Wolf Pack men’s basketball

RENO — University of Nevada men’s basketball coach Steve Alford has announced eight new additions to his staff.

Aubrie Warkentien (director of operations), Irvin Stephens III (academic advisor), Chastity Chov (athletic trainer), Joe Preston (video coordinator), Roman Martinez (graduate assistant), Connor Bush (graduate assistant), Nathan Strong (graduate assistant), and Conrad Chow (graduate assistant) have joined the Wolf Pack for the 2019-20 campaign, Alford’s first as the head coach at Nevada.

“We are extremely pleased to be able to add such quality individuals to complete our staff,” Alford said in a release. “They are very important to helping build our culture at Nevada and they have bright futures as members of the Wolf Pack family.”

Warkentien, a Las Vegas native, spent the past three years at Tulane as the program coordinator for the men’s basketball team. She will handle all aspects of the team’s travel, budget, alumni management and summer camp, as well as the overall day-to-day organization of the Wolf Pack men’s basketball program.

Prior to Tulane she interned with the NBA Summer League, Utah Jazz G-League affiliate Salt Lake City Stars and San Antonio Spurs G-League affiliate Austin Spurs. Warkentien earned her bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Arizona in 2012. Her father, Mark, was a member of Jerry Tarkanian’s staff at UNLV when Alford starred as a player for the Indiana Hoosiers and faced the Rebels in the NCAA semifinals.

Stephens joins the Wolf Pack staff after most recently working at Cal State Northridge. Originally from Southern California, he played football at the University of Idaho where he was a triple major in sociology, psychology and justice studies. He later returned to Idaho as a graduate assistant and worked in academics for the Vandals athletic department while working his master’s degree in education. He then served as an academic coordinator for the Vandals.

Chov comes to Nevada after working as a graduate assistant athletic trainer with Michigan State football team while completing work on master’s degree in athletic training. At Nevada, she will work primarily with the men’s basketball team and assist with policy and procedure development, injury tracking and insurance claims.

Chov did her undergraduate work at Texas, where she graduated in 2013 with a bachelor’s of science degree in athletic training. As a student, she worked primarily with men’s basketball, along with football, swimming and diving, women’s soccer, tennis, and softball.

Chov has been a member of the National Athletic Trainers Association since 2013. She currently holds CPR/AED and first aid certifications, along with being certified in applied functional science through the Gray Institute. She served on the Southwest Athletic Trainers’ Association Student Senate and the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Student Leadership Committee from 2015-2016.

Preston, originally from Memphis, worked for Alford at UCLA from 2015-18 as a team manager and video assistant for the Bruins. During his time at UCLA, the Bruins made back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances in 2015 and 2016. He handled filming and breakdown of games and practice. For the 2018-19 season he was the first graduate assistant in UCLA history. He spent the year helping with player development and assisted with practices in addition to coordinating and analyzing film of games and practice to help prepare scouting reports. Preston graduated in three years from UCLA with a degree in sociology and received a master’s degree from UCLA in social science this year.

Martinez will be the lead graduate assistant for the Pack basketball team. He played three seasons for Alford at the University of New Mexico and was part of two MW regular season championships. Following his time playing for the Lobos he played professionally for seven seasons overseas.

A native of Reno, Bush was a student manager for the Wolf Pack basketball team the last four seasons and was part of the staff that helped the Pack win a CBI title and three consecutive Mountain West regular season championships. The Pack made three consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament including a Sweet 16 appearance in 2018. Bush received his bachelor’s degree in secondary education with an emphasis in social studies from Nevada in May. He will begin work on a master’s degree in higher education administration in the fall.

Strong was born and raised in Albuquerque, N.M., and went on to earn an associate’s degree in communication studies at Santa Monica College followed by a bachelor’s degree in communication studies at New Mexico. He previously served as a student manager for the Lobos.

Chow returns to the Pack for his second season working with the men’s basketball team after serving as a team manager for a squad that won a third consecutive MW championship and reached the NCAA Tournament for the third year in a row. He primarily helped the Pack with video and analytics. Prior to his time at Nevada he was the video coordinator for the AAU Northern Kings in Toronto, Canada and helped coach at Ontario Basketball’s Centre for Performance program in 2017-18.

He assisted the Raptors 905, an NBA G-League team, in game operations during its 2017 league title season and has supported Canada Basketball in analytics since 2017. During this time, Canada Basketball rose to second in the FIBA World Rankings for youth men, most notably winning gold at the 2017 U19 World Cup. From Vancouver, Canada, Chow received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto in 2018 in economics and psychology. He working on a master’s in communication studies at Nevada.