Lady Yoe looking for success with new coach
The Lady Yoe Basketball team is looking for a rebound this season with a new coach.
The Lady Yoe basketball team had a season to forget as they went 10-23 with a district record of 3-9 and missed the playoffs last year. This year they will have a new head coach at the helm, Carmichael Wiley.
Wiley attended Texas Tech University. He graduated with his bachelors in 2019 and with his masters in 2021. He interned with the video coordinator and worked his way up to graduate assistant for three years. He worked under two different coaches (Marlene Stollings and Krista Gerlich) during his tenure at Texas Tech. In his first year there, the team had the second biggest turnaround in the nation, quadrupling the win total in the Big 12.
Last year, he coached for Mineral Area College, a junior college in Arizona. That team had 9 total wins the year before and over 20 wins the next year in his first season there. While deciding to coach high school basketball, one of his coaches from high school, who happens to be from Cameron, Dennis Vansa, recommended him to apply for a coaching position.
“He was telling me the good things and the bad things,” Coach Wiley said. “He said you’ll love it, a bunch of great people there. He said if I need anything, he gave me a bunch of people’s contacts. I came up here, and I visited and I loved it. The facilities are nice. I saw it was very diverse when I came up here. I understood the community. Just the levels, some people may be in different social economic classes. That’s something that I wanted to give back to the kids. I know when I was in high school, I didn’t have that. I didn’t have anybody to help me out, and so I’m coming from a similar situation from when I was younger.”
Wiley understands that the team as a whole has had some struggles since their regional finals appearance in 2011, but he believes that this team can develop and change the way Lady Yoe basketball is viewed.
“I know historically, in the past four years, they’re 7-42 in district (16 percent) and in the past eight years they’re 19-79 in district (74 percent),” Wiley said. “So, I know there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. I know that we have to teach the girls how to play basketball. I tell everybody right now we have a bunch of kids who play basketball, but we need to develop basketball players. We need to have basketball players, not kids who play basketball. Because if we can have basketball players, we’re going to be really good, and we can compete with the Fairfields and all those teams that are continuous to go to state and make deep playoff runs. And we can do it because we have the athletic ability here, we have the support.”
This year, the Lady Yoe have five returning players from last year: Makayla Scott (sophomore), Amani Fields (sophomore), Camryn Ward (junior), Trinity Kelley (junior), and Kaly White (senior). They will have Yierra Flemings returning, who was on the team two years ago, and also added Lauren Harris, who is playing her first year of basketball. They will also have two freshmen on the team in Aubree Brashear and Saydi Wimmer. The roster will also include Reagan Akin, Kennedy Banks, Amija Johnson, and Ava Magre.
“Our motto for this year is trust the process,” Wiley said. “It’s just a list of things that we do every day. And I know a lot of people talk about process but ours is detailed. Academic: You go to school; you take care of your business in the classroom. Lift weights: We’re willing to be the aggressor. We don’t want people to take the ball from us like they have in the past from what I’ve seen on video and stuff like that. Team practice is important. Nutrition: Eating good meals before games. We have a lot of community support in that, and that’s going to be great because the booster club is going to be able to help us out. Individual development: We have to develop kids, not just as basketball players, but individuals. Like do you know how to write a resume, do you know how to act in public, just being disciplined in life. Film: You have to watch film in order to understand what you’re going to do. Recovery: We want to recover, make sure we’re taking care of our bodies.”
He also has what’s called the Free Throws and 50 club, where if you want to shoot a three-point shot anytime you want during a game, you have to make 50 three’s a day, and if not, you don’t get to shoot them.
For the next two years, the Cameron Lady Yoe will be having a new set of district opponents due to the new district reclassification and realignment. The Lady Yoe will not be moving anywhere as they will remain in region 3 district 19. They will have many familiar opponents: Lexington, Little River Academy, Rogers, and Rockdale. They will be losing Caldwell to 4A and in their place they are getting three new teams. Those three teams are McGregor, Lorena, and Troy.
“I think when it comes to realignment, I think it just depends on the team,” Wiley said. “We have Academy who’s ranked 13th, we have Lorena who’s ranked 14th in the state, we have Troy coming back who’s really good. So we have a tough district, so this year is going to be harder than last year and years past because we do have two top 15 teams in our district and you only take four (for the playoffs). So, I would say it just depends on the team and this year the teams are tough.”
The Lady Yoe have already had their scrimmages and won their regular season opener against Thrall 34-33 on a game winning shot from Lauren Harris. They played Thorndale on Tuesday and lost 51-42 to start the year 1-1.