Preston Paulson was hired as a graduate assistant on head coach Ross Hodge's first staff at WVU in July 2025.
Paulson, a native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, spent the past season as a graduate assistant at North Texas. Paulson has 10 years of coaching experience.
This past season at North Texas, the Mean Green won 27 games and advanced to the semifinals of NIT. The Mean Green ranked third in the country in scoring defense at 60.1 points per game, 1.5 points behind first-place Houston. UNT had the AAC’s second-most efficient offense and second-most efficient defense. UNT’s 27 wins were the second-most single season wins in school history and the 14 league victories were tied for the third-most league wins in school history. There, Paulson assisted with player development, daily operations and player personnel.
Before his time at UNT, Paulson was an assistant coach at Harcum College (Division I NJCAA outside of Philadelphia) where he led the team's player development, operations and scouting. He helped lead Harcum in 2023-24 to a 25-5 overall record and the No. 1 seed in the East District of NJCAA in leading to six Division I signees from that season.
Paulson has coached at the high school and postgraduate levels at national powerhouse Prolific Prep and Golden State Prep where he served as head coach for GSP Grey and assistant coach for Prolific Prep located in Napa, California, for four seasons. During those four years, Paulson coached and developed over 50 Division I student-athletes, six McDonald's All Americans and four current NBA players that include Jalen Green, Yves Missi, Mouhamed Gueye and Adem Bona. Paulson also assisted with two Grind Session Championships and four consecutive Geico National invitations from 2019 to 2022, including a historic upset win against the No. 1 team in the country as the 8th seed without 2 McDonald's All Americans (Adem Bona & MJ Rice) during the 2022 participation.
During the offseason, Paulson worked for the NBA Summer League as a team assistant for eight summers. He started off with the Miami Heat for four years and was with the Dallas Mavericks for the past four summers. His NBA experience stems back to an internship within the Minnesota Timberwolves front office and scouting department after graduating from Minnesota State University, Mankato.
In college, Paulson was awarded several promotions from student manager to video coordinator, then ultimately to undergrad assistant coach at the NCAA Division II program Minnesota State University, Mankato. During that time Paulson contributed to the success of the program with back-to-back NSIC Conference Championships (2012-2013 & 2013-2014), four consecutive Division II NCAA Tournament appearances, as well as an average of 20+ wins per season.
Paulson graduated high school from Park Center Senior High. At WVU he is pursuing his master's degree in sports coaching.
