The University of Lynchburg women’s basketball program and head coach Allison Nichols are excited to welcome Felicia Aiyeotan and Makenzie Bray to the coaching staff.
“I’m so excited to add Felicia and Makenzie to our staff,” said coach Nichols. “They both have competed at an extremely high level and have tremendous basketball backgrounds. I’m looking forward to the positive impact they will each have on our program, our players, and the overall culture of our team.”
Felicia Aiyeotan brings with her a dynamic background in the collegiate women’s basketball space as a coach, operations manager, and student-athlete. She is a former ACC All-Defensive Team selection at the University of Virginia and was a representative on Nigeria’s U16 national team. While on the UVA women’s basketball team, she was an honor roll student for three consecutive years and helped the team advance to the NCAA tournament in 2018.
Prior to her arrival at Lynchburg, she worked on the Eastern Kentucky University staff as the director of basketball operations, where she managed team travel, recruiting, scouting, skill development for post players, and more. Aiyeotan spent two seasons at the University of Evansville as a graduate assistant coach and video coordinator before her stint at EKU, supporting the coaching staff with game footage analysis for game-day operations as well as analyzing team footage to enhance coaching strategies and creating recruitment videos and highlight reels. She comes to the Hill City with a sociology degree from UVA and two masters of science degrees, one in health services administration from Evansville and another in technology management from EKU.
Makenzie Bray brings a collective combination of skills from playing experience at the NCAA DI and DII levels to coaching leadership and professional discipline. Bray played at the collegiate level at Merrimack College, Truman State University, and Lake Superior Stats University. She had significant contributions to her teams at each stop, exemplified by her helping Truman State make an appearance in the NCAA DII Tournament and being named the most valuable player of the 2021-22 season at Lake Superior State.
Before arriving to Lynchburg, she was a varsity and junior varsity assistant coach for the women’s basketball team at Panther Creek High School in Cary, N.C. for one year. Prior to that, she spent five years as a skills trainer with Glenwood High School in Chatham, Ill., offering individualized development for high school players. During her high school playing days, she was acclaimed as the Central Illinois Female Athlete of the Year in 2018 and was a nominee for Illinois Miss Basketball in 2018.
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