Published: October 14, 2009 12:10 am      

Texas A&M-Commerce welcomes new women's basketball coach

COMMERCE — Texas A&M University-Commerce’s new head women’s basketball coach brings with her a wealth of experience both as a player and as a coach.

Nicole Anderson has been selected to replace Denny Downing as coach of the Lions. Downing resigned back in July to take on an NCAA Division I program at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg.

“She has coached or played at every level,” said Dr. Dan Jones, university president at a press conference on Tuesday. “There is little in the world of basketball that Coach Anderson has not done.”

Anderson was one of the top high school guards out of San Diego County in California back in the late 1980s before playing at UCLA from 1989-93. She still ranks among the Bruins’ top five all-time in career steals and assists and was selected as one of the 15 greatest women’s basketball players in UCLA history.

Anderson played for the U.S. team in the William Jones Cup in Taiwan in 1991, winning a bronze medal and earning all-tournament honors.

She also played for the Los Angeles Sparks’ development team in 1997 in the WNBA before entering the coaching ranks.

She coached the last six seasons as an assistant coach and the primary recruiting coordinator for Long Beach State (Calif.), plus spent two seasons as an assistant coach at San Diego State, one season as the head coach at New Haven (Conn.) and was also the head coach at Francis Parker High School in San Diego, guiding her team to a No. 3 state ranking. She broke into the coaching ranks at Francis Parker Middle School in San Diego.

Jones said Anderson has “proven her ability on the court” and is “an excellent recruiter.”

“She brings new ideas, some new strategies, enthusiasm and a level of vision to the program that we feel will propel it to the next level,” said Jones.

Carlton Cooper, A&M-Commerce’s athletic director, said Anderson was selected from nearly 100 applicants. He said the Lions not only did a national search for a new coach but a global one as well since a couple of the applicants were from out of the country.

Jones said Anderson won’t be “starting with a blank slate.”

She’s taking over a program that went 106-99 in seven seasons under Downing. Downing’s last four teams were 16-13, 28-8, 19-9 and 18-11. The 28-8 Lions won the Lone Star Conference North Division title in 2007, the LSC postseason tournament and the NCAA Division II South Central regional tournament to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time in school history.

Britney Jordan, who played for Downing last season, led the nation in scoring at 31.3 points per game and was drafted in the third round by the Sparks.

“Coach Downing did a great job of making this program known nationally,” said Anderson.

“The foundation of the program has been laid for us, now it’s our job to build on that foundation and grow this program to a national level,” she said.

She said she’s putting together a program that “requires tremendous commitment from our players every day,” she said.

“One thing I learned as a player is the amount of commitment that it takes to be extremely successful,” she said.

The Lions, under Anderson, will be an uptempo team.

“We’re going to get up and down (the floor) and pressure the ball,” she said.

She arrived on campus on Thursday and has already met the 10 players currently on the roster.

“I kind of hit the floor running,” she said. “The transition hasn’t been tough at all. I’m very, very excited about the players. They’re excited about learning. They’re excited about being taught the game.”