Tina Samaniego, who as an assistant women’s basketball coach at Cal State Monterey Bay helped build the Otters into one of the top programs in the West Coast, has accepted the associate head coach position at Cal State San Bernardino, Coyotes head coach Renee Jimenez announced Thursday.

"Tina is a remarkable coach who has every intangible a program needs,” said Jimenez, who also hired Samaniego at CSUMB in 2008. "A great deal of our successes at Cal State Monterey Bay was in large part due to her ability to maximize potential. She understands our league as well as anyone and is absolutely critical in her on-court and off-court knowledge as we prepare for our first season at CSUSB.”

In five seasons at CSUMB, the Otters earned three consecutive NCAA Tournament bids (2011-13), one CCAA regular-season title (2011), a CCAA Tournament title (2012) and 97 victories over the five-year span.

Prior to joining the Otters staff in 2008, Samaniego served as an assistant coach at Pepperdine University for two seasons where she was video and film exchange coordinator in addition to working with the guards, scouting and recruiting. She returned to Pepperdine in 2006 after spending her 1999-00 season as a player on the first Pepperdine women’s basketball team to make it to the NCAA post-season.

Samaniego started her coaching career as an assistant coach at San Francisco’s Sacred Heart Prep where she spent two seasons. She helped lead the team to the 2004 CIF Division III state championship game. After reaching the 2005 CIF Northern California Division III title game she moved on to serve as an assistant coach at Menlo College for one season. Prior to joining the staff at Pepperdine, Samaniego served as a staff intern for the women’s basketball program at Stanford University, under Coach Tara VanDerveer.

The Oxnard native played for one season for Pepperdine after walking on as a freshman. She then went on to Ventura College where she served as team captain, earning All–Western State Conference honors while helping the Pirates to the 2001 California State Championship.

Samaniego is a 2003 graduate of University of San Francisco with a bachelor’s in exercise science with a minor in business administration. She received her master’s in kinesiology from San Jose State in 2006.

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