Fresno State head women’s basketball coach Jaime White announced Thursday that she has rounded out her coaching staff with the hiring of Mandi Carver, Keith Ferguson and Tom Perkins.
Carver and Ferguson will both serve in roles as assistant coaches while Perkins will be the director of operations. The trio joins Laura Dinkins, who was hired as an assistant coach on April 28, on White’s staff.
"I am thrilled with the hiring of our new staff," White said. "Each one brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the Fresno State family. We are all excited to hit the ground running with our new team."
Carver last was an assistant coach at San Jose State from 2011-13 and before that served one season as an assistant at Bakersfield. At both schools she held the role of recruiting coordinator in addition to her coaching duties. At SJSU, working with the post players, she was instrumental in the development of first-team All-WAC forward Brittany Johnson, who led the WAC in scoring in 2011-12 at 20.1 points per game.
Carver also brings to Fresno State a wealth of experience as a player, having played professionally starting in 2002 when she signed a free agent contract with the Detroit Shock before going on to flourish overseas from 2002-09. In her time playing professionally, she was the Swiss League and Latvian League Most Valuable Player, a two-time All-Star selection in Greece and the Arab Clubs Tournament MVP. She played collegiately at Idaho State and led the nation in rebounding during the 2001-02 season. Craver was a three-time All-Big Sky selection, is the school’s all-time leader in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots, and helped lead the program into the NCAA Tournament in 2001. She was honored as one of the Big Sky Conference Top 25 Female Athletes.
Ferguson brings in nine years of coaching experience, both as an assistant and as a head coach where he has seen six of his players go on to receive All-America accolades and 24 garner all-conference recognition. He served two seasons each as head coach at Brown Mackie Community College (2007-09) and at Barton Community College (2009-11), compiling an 94-50 (.653) overall record.
After leaving Barton CC, Ferguson was an assistant coach for one season at Hutchinson Community College (2011-12), a year in which Hutchinson was the national runner-up in the NJCAA Tournament with a 36-1 record, and he spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. At UL-Monroe, Ferguson was the recruiting coordinator, coached the guards and was in charge of scheduling.
Perkins has previous experience on White’s staff, as he was an assistant coach for her during the 2010-11 season at Northern Colorado. That year, he and White helped lead the Bears to the Big Sky co-regular season championship and the school’s first Division I postseason appearance playing in the Women’s Basketball Invitational. After leaving Northern Colorado, Perkins became the head women’s basketball coach at Wasatch High School in Heber City, Utah.
Perkins was also the head coach at Utah Valley State College from 1983-95 where his teams won 10 ICAC conference championships, three Region 18 NJCAA championships, made three appearances at the NJCAA National Championship tournament and compiled a 278-48 (.851) overall record. He retired from coaching in 1995 to coach his own children until picking back up in the game in 2010 with coach White at Northern Colorado.
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