Grand Canyon women’s basketball head coach Molly Miller announced additions to her Lopes staff for the upcoming season.
Miller welcomes assistant coaches Emily Ragsdale, Buck Scheel and Karyla Middlebrook, along with Brittany Lange as director of strategies and player development.
Ragsdale comes to GCU after spending last season as the head coach at Roosevelt, an NAIA program in Chicago. Ragsdale also was an assistant under Molly Miller at Drury for three seasons (2016-19).
Ragsdale was named to the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Thirty Under 30 list in March of 2019. The list recognizes coaches age 30 and under who “have demonstrated eagerness, effectiveness, loyalty, love of the game and commitment to the student-athlete,” WBCA executive director Danielle Donehew said.
The Roosevelt position was a return to her home state for Ragsdale, a native of Ottawa, Illinois, and a former standout at Ottawa Township High School. She played collegiately at Judson, where she set school records for offensive rebounds and blocked shots after starting for four seasons (2011-15).
As an assistant at Drury, Ragsdale helped the Panthers to three consecutive 30-win seasons, Great Lakes Valley Conference championships and NCAA Division II tournament berths. Ragsdale was on the staff that led Drury to a spot in the 2019 Final Four. Prior to Drury, Ragsdale spent a season as an assistant coach at Aurora, a Division III program in Illinois, and helped the Spartans to a nine-win improvement.
Ragsdale holds a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Sport Science with a concentration in Sports Administration from Judson. She earned a Masters of Education from Drury in 2018.
Scheel comes to GCU after spending two seasons as an assistant with Miller at Drury. He helped direct the Panthers to a 67-1 record over two years with a 2019 Final Four appearance and a wire-to-wire No. 1 national ranking this year before the national tournament cancellation due to COVID-19.
Scheel spent the previous two and a half seasons as the head coach at Northwest Missouri State. Before taking over midway through the 2015-16 campaign, he served as the Bearcats assistant with the Bearcats for two years. During his tenure, he recruited and coached several all-conference performers, including the 2018 Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association Co-Freshman of the Year, Jaelyn Haggard.
From 2010-2013, Scheel was the top assistant at State Fair Community College in Sedalia, Missouri, when the program went 68-28 with a 2011 district championship. He also worked as the head coach at Southwestern Community College in Iowa for three years and served as a Midwest Elite Basketball instructor.
Scheel, a native of Columbus, Nebraska, started his collegiate playing career at Kaplan in Lincoln, Nebraska, before finishing at Waldorf in Iowa. He served as a team captain at both programs and graduated from Waldorf in Business Management. Scheel also earned a master’s degree in Sports Management from Columbia Southern in Alabama.
]Middlebrook comes to GCU after serving as an Evansville assistant coach for the past two seasons and playing at Alabama and Kansas State.
With the Crimson Tide, she was a three-time SEC Academic Honor Roll member. During her 2015-16 season, Alabama earned its first-ever home win over Tennessee and ended a 42-game winless streak against the Lady Vols. She started 70 of her 72 games at Alabama with a two-season scoring average of 7.6 points per game.
Middlebrook then went to Kansas State as a graduate transfer and became the Wildcats’ 2016-17 Most Improved Player. She started 31 of her 33 games in her first Wildcats season while reaching double figures in scoring on 12 occasions, including a 27-point, seven-rebound game at Oklahoma. The 2016-17 team went 23-11 and beat Drake in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Middlebrook, honored on the Academic All-Big 12 second team, was limited to four games in 2017-18 due to injury and moved to a student assistant role.
The Blue Springs, Missouri, native also assisted with camps at Kansas State while helping her father, a youth coach. She graduated from Alabama in Business Management and earned a master’s degree in Academic Advising from Kansas State.
Lange comes to GCU from Omaha, where she served as head coach for seven seasons (2013-20). Lange was at Omaha for the start of its Divisioni I era and became the youngest Division I basketball head coach in 2013 at age 26.
In her first four years, Omaha improved each season to moved more than 150 spots in the RPI. Off the court, her team led the athletic department in community service for the last four years. She also spearheaded “Maverick Mentors,” which features key female community leaders in Omaha. Her program also won two NCAA Public Recognition Awards, which put her team in the top 10% for Academic Progress Rate results.
Lange joined the Mavericks in 2011-12 as the director of basketball operations, after spending the previous year as a graduate assistant at St. Edward’s in Austin, Texas, under head coach Jennifer White, who won two Division II national championships. She also served as a coach and trainer for top Division I players at Point Guard College in 2008.
She started her collegiate playing career at Creighton in 2005-06 before transferring to Iowa State. She played guard on four NCAA tournament teams at Iowa State with a record of 98-37 before working on legendary Cyclones head coach Bill Fennelly’s staff from 2008 to 2010.
Lange assisted the Cyclones Elite Eight run in 2009 and Sweet 16 team in 2010 after reaching the NCAA tournament’s second round as a player in 2007 and 2008. She also served as a strength and conditioning intern for Iowa State’s men’s and women’s basketball teams.
A native of Sac City, Iowa, Lange earned her degree in kinesiology from Iowa State. She comes from a rich basketball family, in which her mother, father, brother and grandfather all played collegiately. She is engaged to Ryan McKim.
https://gculopes.com/news/2020/4/28/womens-basketball-miller-announces-coaching-staff.aspx
