Head Coach Misti Cussen has announced the additions of Golden Eagle legend Krista Binam and Royce Samuels to the Oral Roberts University women’s basketball coaching staff. Both Binam and Samuels will begin their duties immediately.
Binam has spent the last nine seasons as a head coach at four high schools in the Eastern Oklahoma area. From 2003-06, Binam coached at Glenpool High School, leading the Warriors to a pair of 25-win seasons. Binam then spent four seasons at Coweta High School, taking the Tigers to the OSSAA State Tournament in 2007 and 2008.
Binam spent the 2010-11 season at Indianola High School, and most recently she led Owasso High School during the 2011-12 season.
For her high school career, Binam posted a record of 158-66.
Binam (formerly Ragan) is best known by Golden Eagle fans for her record-breaking collegiate career in the ORU navy and gold. From 1996-2002, Binam rewrote ORU’s record books and laid the groundwork for the program’s unprecedented level of success.
The Indianola native is a two-time Mid-Continent Conference Player of the Year, and she earned Kodak All-American honors in 2002. Binam led ORU to a pair of Mid-Continent Conference championships and the first two NCAA Tournament bids in school history. She ended her career as the Mid-Con’s career scoring leader, with 2,152 points.
Samuels comes to ORU from the University of Detroit-Mercy, where he was an assistant coach for the 2010-11 season. While at Detroit, Samuels was a key cog in a team that posted 13 wins, including a 19-point victory over Big 10 program Michigan.
A longtime coach in the Amateur Athletic Union ranks, Samuels has tallied 18 years of experience at the AAU level. Most recently, Samuels was the head coach of Team Wisconsin, where he coached current University of Oklahoma standout Nicole Griffin.
Samuels also has collegiate coaching experience with the men’s programs at the University of Wisconsin-Stout and Olivet (Mich.) College, where he was a chief recruiter and in charge of the program’s offseason training schedules.
Samuels helped Wisconsin-Stout to a 14-11 season and a winning conference record during the 2002-03. During Samuels’ four-year tenure at Olivet, the Comets posted two seasons of double-digit victories and produced five players who earned All-Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association honors.
Samuels has also served at a number of high school stops, including Douglass High School in Oklahoma City and El Reno High School in El Reno, Okla.
Samuels is a native of El Reno and graduated from Wisconsin’s Mount Senario College in 1992 with degrees in Criminal Justice and Special Education. He has spent several years working in special education programs at several different schools.
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