Brian Thornton joined the American Athletic Conference as the associate commissioner for basketball in October 2020.
Thornton serves as the primary administrator for The American’s men’s and women’s basketball programs, including oversight of scheduling, officiating and game operations as well as compliance with NCAA governance. He is also the commissioner’s liaison with The American’s men’s and women’s basketball coaches.
Thornton came to The American after most recently serving as an assistant director for basketball development at the NCAA National Office since 2018. Thornton was responsible for developing relationships with constituents in the men’s and women’s basketball communities, including collegiate and nonscholastic coaches, apparel companies and professional basketball organizations. He additionally served as a liaison to the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball oversight committees, developing legislative concepts to foster the growth and development of college basketball.
Before joining the staff at the NCAA, Thornton spent nine years as an assistant at the Division I level, serving as an assistant coach for the men’s basketball programs at Ball State (2014-18), Winthrop (2012-14) and Furman (2011-12) and as director of operations at Xavier.
Thornton was a standout player at Xavier, where he was the 2005 and 2006 Atlantic-10 Student-Athlete of the Year, a CoSIDA Academic All-America selection and was a first-team all-conference pick for the Musketeers’ 2006 Atlantic-10 championship team. He began his playing career at Vanderbilt, where he was an SEC all-freshman selection in 2002 and played professionally for the Artland Dragons for the Basketball Bundesliga in Germany from 2006-07.
Thornton earned an undergraduate degree in business from Xavier in 2005 and added an MBA from that institution in 2007.