De Anza College names Baker as new women’s basketball coach

Aniya Baker, who brings a rich background as both a player and coach, has been named the new head women’s basketball coach and an adjunct professor at De Anza College, it was announced on Thursday.

Baker brings experience from four-year university, high school and AAU levels – as a player, assistant coach, head coach, teacher and trainer.  

She played basketball collegiately at UC Davis (2012-13, Big West All-Freshman Team selection), San Jose State (2014-16) and Grand Canyon University (2016-17). As a standout point guard on the court, she also excelled academically as an Honor Roll student.
 
Aniya graduated with a bachelor’s degree in organizational studies from San Jose State in 2016 and a master’s degree in Business Administration from Grand Canyon in 2018.

She recently served as an assistant coach at Cal State Dominguez Hills during the 2019-2020 season, helping the Toros to 13 wins and three players to All-California College Athletic Association selections, including Newcomer of the Year guard Arianna Harper.  

Under head coach John Bonner, Baker was in charge of several administrative duties, including gameday operations, team travel logistics, program equipment, and recruitment tours. She also assisted with gameday and practice planning, scouting, video breakdown, skill development, and student-athlete academic advising.
 
Before joining the Toros, Aniya spent two seasons (2017-19) as the girls’ junior varsity head coach, varsity assistant coach, and strength & conditioning coach at her alma mater, Perris High School. She was in charge of all offseason workouts, training both girls and boys. 

She also worked for Los Angeles-based Veritas Training Academy (2018-19) as the head coach, skill development coach, and director of the 17U national girls’ team.

Baker was raised in a basketball family. Her father, Jemarl Baker Sr., played at Cal State Northridge and coached at Los Angeles Southwest College; and her brother, Jemarl Baker Jr., is a current starting shooting guard at the University of Arizona (transfer from the University of Kentucky). Jemarl was recently named PAC-12 Player of the Week.  

As a high school standout at Perris, she was a McDonald’s All-American honorable mention and All-CIF Southern Section selection. She averaged 19.8 points and 7.3 assists as a senior, and was twice voted Sunbelt League Most Valuable Player. 

At UC Davis, Aniya finished second on the team in assists (51) and third in steals (48), and three-point attempts (68). As a sophomore at San Jose State, she led the team in assists (119), ranking fifth in the Mountain West Conference. She was also third in the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio. Baker led Grand Canyon in steals (50) as a senior.  

Baker officially starts her new role on Jan. 4.

https://www.cccaasports.org/sports/wbkb/2020-21/releases/Baker_DeAnza