The Lady Railsplitter women’s basketball staff is complete.
After Krystal Evans tabbed Eric Brewton Jr., as one of her full-time assistants over the summer, the Lincoln Memorial University women’s hoops head coach wrapped up her staff recently with the hiring of former Gardner-Webb University standout Catrina Green.
“I’m just blessed and thankful for this opportunity,” Green said. “I’m really excited to be working with Coach Evans, Coach Eric Brewton Jr., Tanner Alley and everyone else that is a part of this staff. I really feel like this is going to be a great season for us. I’m really excited to be here, dig in and work with the post players and just get to work.”
Evans was familiar with Green after coaching her for two years under the direction of her father, Rick Reeves, at Gardner-Webb University.
Green was stellar during her four-year career (2011-14) as a Runnin’ Bulldog, along with in the classroom, graduating in 2014 with a 3.14 GPA and Bachelor Degree in Exercise Science.
As a freshman, she was named to the Big South All-Freshman Team, while being a Big South Second Team All-Conference player in 2012 and 2014. She was also on the Big South All-Academic Team as well as the NCCSIA First Team All-State to cap off her senior campaign.
The 6-foot-2 center was well-known for her grittiness in the paint and knack of scoring and rebounding, which shows in her final stat line as a ‘Runnin Bulldog.
So far through Reeves’ 14 years at GWU, Green was one of nine players to surpass the career 1,000-point mark, ranking third with 1,241 points. Green has an even more intriguing stat as she is one of only eight student-athletes to haul in over 500 career rebounds and is the only player to snag over 1,000 with 1,012 in her four-year career, which resonated nicely with Evans.
“I needed a post coach and Catrina is one of the best post players I’ve ever coached,” Evans said. “I had the opportunity to coach her at Gardner-Webb University for two years and she’s very passionate about rebounding, and that’s something we desperately need on our team.
“She scored over 1,000 points at Gardner-Webb and had over 1,000 rebounds. We just don’t have many players that are able to do that. She went overseas to play. I think that we have so much potential in our post players. We just need somebody to help them along and reaching that potential. I think she can do a great job. And, on a personal note, Catrina is always happy, always positive and uplifting. I think that’s a good addition to our team, as well.”
After her college playing days, Green had two stints professionally overseas, where she played with Club Uniao Sportiva from September 2014 to April 2015 and Club SG Bergisch Lowen September 2016 to March 2017.
In between, Green was an assistant coach with the Carolina Reign Elite 15U Girls AAU Team in Greensboro, N.C., from April to August in 2015. She then was a women’s basketball assistant and athletics community service director at the University of Illinois Springfield from that August to May 2016 before going back overseas to play.
At UIS, Green did a handful of tasks like organizing and running practice to monitoring student-athlete study hall and academic progress. She also assisted in recruitment and analyzed game film, among other responsibilities. On the community service side of things, she scheduled all community service events plus maintained and created database for all activities within the department.
Now, she’s at LMU primed to take all her experience and not only guide the post players, but the entire Lady Railsplitter team to the boards.
“Even as a team, guards included, really getting to the boards and dominating this season,” Green said. “Coming from college, I actually played under Coach Evans’ dad, Coach Reeves, and the thing he really emphasized to us, they always say, ‘Scoring and defense wins games, but rebounding wins championships.’
“When you see from any level of basketball, male or female, you see that every team if they out-rebound their opponent, they are more than likely to win, especially on the offensive end. The more offensive rebounds you get, the more opportunities you have to score. That’s always been a staple of mine.”
On top of the addition of Green working with the post players and overseeing the academics and Brewton Jr., coaching up the guards along with focusing on recruiting, the Lady Railsplitters have graduate assistant Tanner Alley.
Alley, who has worked with the squad the previous two seasons as a male practice player, is the tech-savvy guy who helps coordinate male practice players while assisting Brewton Jr., with the guards.
He contributes with other tasks, as well, making him the utility member to round out an impressive staff under Evans.
“They make my job easier in so many different areas, not just on the court,” Evans said of her staff. “You’ve got high energy and just very knowledgeable in Eric. You’ve got hard-nosed, gritty and I’m going to out-work you post player and person in Catrina. Then, in Tanner, you have extremely intelligent, happy to be here, and organized. They all three are just a pleasure to be around. The fact that I have such a well-rounded staff is just a blessing.”
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