Long Beach State was thrown for a loop back in April when head coach Amy Wright left the program to join Alabama as an assistant coach. With the transfer portal having closed about a week prior and potential players already off the board, there was little time to construct a roster capable of competing in the Big West.
After an extensive search, the Beach landed on California native Minyon Moore to lead the program, and she got right to work in putting together the best roster she could given the circumstances. Since the end of the 2025-26 season and following Wright’s departure, Long Beach State lost 10 players from last year’s roster to the portal, leaving incoming sophomore forward Rosie Akot as the lone returner.
Junior college transfer Kailyn Berry had committed to the Beach before Moore’s hire, and also opted to remain on the team. In the past couple of months, Moore has added nine new players, a mix of transfers and true freshmen. What helped her with the quick turnaround was having returning support staff in place who had already begun prep work.
“We had a complete roster rebuild, so our job was to identify those young women that were 2026 recruits that hadn’t been signed or players that were still in the portal looking for a new home … who not only fit us basketball-wise, but also were high-achieving young women on and off the court,” Moore told The IX Basketball. “A lot of these kids who were still in the portal probably didn’t have huge roles, so our staff really had to dive deep into taking the layers back and figuring out each of the players not only as basketball people, but also the people that we were speaking to.”
Among the new players, three have local ties. Incoming freshman guard Ebony Taylor-Smith is from nearby Rancho Christian High School. Senior transfer Amber Furchs, who was a standout at nearby Brentwood High School, is returning to California after three seasons of Division II basketball at Saint Michael’s College in Vermont. And junior transfer Ashanti Dias starred at Archbishop Riordan in San Francisco before playing a year at Division II Cal State LA and a year at Laney Junior College up north.
Moore herself is a local product. She played her high school basketball at Salesian in Richmond, California, then spent three seasons at USC before finishing her college career at Oregon. Her first official coaching job was as an assistant under Mark Campbell at Sacramento State.
As she begins to put her mark on the program, she’s confident that her ties to the California basketball scene will serve her well when it comes to eventually crafting Long Beach State into a top contender in the Big West.
”I’m not super removed from my playing days, and so the relatability with student-athletes is so important in the recruiting process. I can speak on my time as a player, but also of the landscape,” Moore said. “Being able to tell them that this is the plan, this is the blueprint. This is what we’re following and give them examples that I’ve been able to experience and be a part of.
“… I’m home, I’m here to stay at Long Beach. I want to build this program. California is an amazing place, and to be able to speak on that and have an actual testament that I’m a person who loves it here, has been here and chose to go to college out here, I think that speaks volumes and speaks for itself.”
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Moore spent two seasons alongside Campbell at Sacramento State, where she helped engineer a transformation that saw the Hornets have their most successful season in program history (25-8) and reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time.
When Campbell was then hired as the head coach at TCU, Moore went with him and was credited for helping shape the Horned Frogs’ defense. Last season, TCU was 11th in the nation in defensive rating at 80.5, per Sports Reference, and they’ve held opponents below 60 points per game the last two years.
TCU also enjoyed a similar turnaround to Sacramento State, with the Horned Frogs making back-to-back Elite Eight appearances, the first in program history, and posting record-setting win totals, finishing with records of 34-4 and 32-6 in 2024-25 and 2025-26, respectively.
With the experience of being a part of two successful rebuilds in a relatively quick turnaround, Moore felt like the time was right to take a step forward. When Long Beach State came calling, she knew she couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
“The success that we found very quick building a championship culture at different programs at different levels, mid-major and power four … you learn fast and you learn a lot. My five-year snapshot, I feel like I’ve been coaching for 10-20 years already just because of what I’ve been able to experience,” Moore said. “I think just on both ends, it fit what I was looking for. Coming back home to California, the program here, the championship culture that has been built here and that there’s a foundation … it definitely was a perfect fit for me.”
The expectation for winning at Long Beach State comes from the program’s early NCAA days in the 80’s under legendary head coach Joan Bonvicini. The Beach were a perennial NCAA Tournament contender with future WNBA players such as Penny Toler and Cindy Brown gracing the court.
Jody Wynn was the last coach to take Long Beach State to the NCAA Tournament during the 2016-17 season, snapping a 25-year drought in the process, and helping reshape the program into a regular Big West force.
Most recently, even though Jeff Cammon failed to reach the NCAA Tournament during his six-year tenure, Long Beach State was regularly one of the top teams in the Big West. And now, Moore is hoping to be the next in a line of strong coaches who have graced the Beach.
”Culture is huge; culture is No. 1 at the end of the day. Sac State and TCU don’t get rebuilt if you don’t have the right people to go in that program,” Moore said. “Winning is not just Xs and Os; winning is culture, winning is locker room, winning is the standards that your program lives by day in and day out. That’s what we’re going to [hang] our hat on. The only promise I’ll make in the recruiting process is I will make sure that our locker room is right. I will promise every parent that the environment and a healthy culture is a must-have every single year.”
Helping Moore get her feet set is assistant coach Jeff Harada, who brings eight years of head-coaching experience at the Division I level and 22 years of experience overall. Harada was recently the head coach at Cal State Fullerton, also in the Big West.
His departure after the 2024-25 season left the Titans searching for a new head coach as well. After tabbing John Bonner to lead the program last year, he left to become the head coach at Seattle University, once again putting the Titans in need of someone at the helm.
Their most recent search led them to Sammy Doucette, who was the head coach at Orange Coast Community College for the past seven years. This is her first foray into the Division I ranks.
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With conference realignment hitting college basketball hard, and three new schools in Cal Baptist, Sacramento State and Utah Valley joining the Big West this season, for Doucette, it’s a feeling she can understand.
”I’m in the Big West. I’m not in the ACC or the SEC, but that’s what this feels like. This is my SEC. My budget at Orange Coast College was literally 3% of what my budget is at Cal State Fullerton,” Doucette told The IX Basketball. “This is like I’ve hit the lottery. I don’t know if a lot of other coaches in the Big West feel that way; maybe they do. But coming from where I come, how could you not feel that way.”
Doucette has spent the past seven years turning OCC into one of the premier junior college powerhouses in California. Under her leadership, the Pirates won back-to-back California Community College Athletic Association (3C2A) state championships from 2022-2024. They were a perennial 3C2A playoff contender after only winning two games in her first year with the program.
Although she’s never coached at the DI level before, she believes that her success at OCC has prepared her well for the new college basketball landscape she’s walking into. Doucette is used to putting together new rosters almost every year, as junior college athletes in California are limited to only two seasons of eligibility.
With the popularity of the transfer portal alongside the introduction of NIL, it’s not uncommon to see shuffling rosters amongst the DI ranks. Doucette certainly wants to do her best to retain talent, but she understands the landscape and is confident she can still build a thriving program at Cal State Fullerton.
”Being okay with that, understanding that the rosters are going to turn over, that’s just a part of it. Number one is just going to be building those relationships so that hopefully those kids stay,” Doucette said. “And if they don’t, if they have a successful first year, second year and they end up leaving, understanding that it’s just part of it. Being sad about it or complaining about it isn’t going to do anything. You just got to keep it pushing and find the next best kid to kind of do it all over again, which is essentially what we had to do at the junior college level.”
Thankfully for Doucette, she didn’t need to build a roster from scratch. Six players from last season’s team are returning. So far, she’s added five new players to the team, three of whom have junior college experience. Two of those three, Ashari Cassell and Alyssa Dreessen, played for Doucette at OCC.
Recruiting from the junior college ranks has become a very viable option for some DI coaches. It’s a market Doucette wants to keep tapping into because of the mentality many players have as they move up to different levels. It’s the same mentality Doucette brings with her as she gets things rolling.
”We’ve got a little bit of a chip on our shoulder; we’ve got to prove something. That’s how I feel at least, and that’s how my players that have played at the JuCo level and moved on at the four-year have felt, a little chip on their shoulder,” Doucette said. “Just a relentless work ethic to try and catch up to all these other experienced DI coaches
“… I love the elite junior college players, the ones that feel like they have something to prove … that’s my ideal type of player. I think if you can find those really good ones that are willing to work and willing to hold their own at the Division I level, I think that is a really good route to go.”
With summer workouts getting underway, Doucette is trying to establish a culture of hard work. She isn’t as focused on the win-loss column heading into her first year, but she does want a team whose identity is rooted in how they carry themselves both on and off the court.
”I just want them to give 100% effort in everything that we do … I want us to just have that buzz around campus. If the buzz is that we win, that’s great,” Doucette said. “But more so I care that the buzz is like, ‘Man, the women’s basketball team works so hard, they’re so cool, they’re nice people.’ That’s the kind of environment and the culture that I’m most focused on. And if we give a high effort in everything that we do, all that other stuff will take care of itself.”
