Charlotte women’s basketball preps for Tomekia Reed era

CHARLOTTE ATHLETICS

Charlotte 49ers women's basketball coach Tomekia Reed gears up for her first season with the AAC program after a successful run at Jackson State.

Tomekia Reed is excited and motivated.

The new Charlotte 49ers women’s basketball coach has stirred up a lot of buzz about her team since she was hired in April, and for good reason. As head coach at Jackson State, Reed had multiple NCAA tournament appearances and a handful of players drafted by  WNBA teams. She has put together a talented roster and can’t wait to get the season started.

“This has been emotional,” Reed said. “This is finally where you’ve always seen yourself, at this level and you’ve finally got the opportunity. It is emotional because I’m really thankful and I’m extremely excited. I have to channel those emotions and make sure they are coming out in a very positive way because I know that the players are dependent on me. I know the coaching staff, they're all dependent on me. [The team] has been working hard. So now, we just bring it all together, put it on the floor, using it in the right direction, so that we can be excited, have fun, and showcase what we have to offer. And we can build our fan base and get people to really believe in the Reed era.”

Reed, who brought her Jackson State staff to Charlotte, feels that continuity is an advantage in making the transition to a new program. Her staff already knows what she wants.

“Retaining my staff was really important because I'm not having to teach a new staff what my expectations are,” Reed said. “I'm not having to teach them how to handle the players behind the scenes or on the court, which is a little bit easier to manage. But, off the court, having coaches that know the players’ personalities and know how to get the players attention and how to keep the players on board with my standards. That has helped tremendously, and so that was really important to me.

“Revolving doors are never easy to deal with. They know what type of players I want in terms of recruiting, and they know how to get the players motivated. So, having them on board has helped this program move forward a lot faster than what it would normally be.”

The 49ers are going to look a lot different than last season as Reed and her staff brought in 10 new players to the program. Two players that will make an immediate impact are Kay Kay Green, a transfer from Texas A&M and Hayleigh Breland, who came with Reed from Jackson State.

“We are just ready to play,” Green said. “We’ve been practicing all summer, so we are just ready to play. We have a really good team and a good staff, and I think we are just ready to showcase what we have here.”

Said Breland: “We’ve been practicing hard the whole month of October, and all the way through we’ve just been going at each other. It will be good to be able to play somebody else and take that energy out on someone else.”

Reed has brought together a team and where each player has their own story to tell, and they can’t wait to tell it on the court.

“When I see my players, and I see my team, and I look at their stories and their backgrounds, for me [the story] it's hope,” she said. “It's hope and opportunity. Some players have new hope that's been filled. Some players want to take advantage of this new opportunity. Some players had doors closed in their faces. Some players didn't belong where they transferred from. Some players didn't feel like they had a relationship where they came from. And so, we just are kind of rebuilding that, and that's what we're working on.”

Charlotte was picked to finish 11th of 13 teams in the conference this season.

Reed takes those preseason expections personally.

“I've never in my career been chosen this low in the conference, to be finished third from the bottom,” she said. “That's a drive for me. These girls are so talented and they're so skilled, but they're so smart. They picked up on a system in two weeks and went over to Europe and executed that system, and now we're just fine tuning what we already put in. So, this is a very smart team, a team that's hungry, and I think you will not see an 11th place team.”

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