The Japan Basketball Association said Wednesday it has decided to appoint former NBA coach Herb Brown in an advisory role to help revive the fortunes of the women's national team.

Japan's women failed to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and last year's London Games.

The 76-year-old Brown is a former head coach of the Detroit Pistons (1976-78) and the brother of 72-year-old Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown, the current Southern Methodist University sideline supervisor.

The elder Brown has had a lengthy career in basketball, with assistant coaching stints in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Portland, Houston, Phoenix, Indiana, Charlotte and Atlanta. He has coached in the now-defunct Continental Basketball Association and the Western Basketball Association, as well as the International Basketball League. He has coached in Spain and in Puerto Rico, notably doing the latter for 15 summers.

Brown also served as Bulls scout during the early 1990s, when the Michael Jordan-led club captured its first three titles.