WNBA crew’s new teaching employees indicators starting of a brand new period

It’s a brand new period in Connecticut Solar basketball — with longtime franchise gamers Alyssa Thomas and Brionna Jones, amongst others, departing the group this previous summer time.

The brand new period additionally means a brand new teaching employees will occupy the Mohegan Solar Area sidelines; Stephanie White is now main the Indiana Fever, and the Solar have employed Belgium nationwide crew coach Rachid Meziane.

On Monday, Meziane introduced his total teaching employees. A number of members are returning — Ryan Newton as head athletic coach and bodily therapist, Jeanie Brookes as assistant athletic coach and Analisse Rios as power and conditioning coach.

However, Meziane can be bringing in a slew of brand-new employees members, inclduing:

• Chaz Franklin as the brand new Head of Participant Improvement. Franklin was most lately the director of participant growth for Marquette College Girls’s basketball, and earlier than that was the director of participant growth for the Chicago Sky. Additionally becoming a member of the participant growth employees are Kevin Owens and Bak Sawi. Sawi was most lately was an assistant males’s basketball coach at Southern Coast Academy prep college, whereas Owens was beforehand the crew’s video coordinator in the course of the 2023 season, and
• Kristen Mann because the Supervisor of Basketball Improvement. She is a former skilled basketball participant who was within the WNBA from 2005 to 2010, and in addition performed abroad for almost 20 years.
• Kristina Beauchais because the Supervisor of Basketball Operations after teaching basketball in Maine the final 4 years and beforehand teaching highschool and collegiate basketball.

Rachid Meziane will coach the new-look Connecticut Solar

Rachid Meziane beforehand served as the pinnacle coach of Villeneuve-d’Ascq, a French membership that was the EuroLeague runner-up winners in every of the final two seasons. He additionally coached the Belgian girls’s nationwide crew that got here in fourth place on the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Because it at present stands, the 2024-25 Connecticut Solar roster can be headlined by Natasha Cloud, Marina Mabrey, Tina Charles, Jacy Sheldon, and Olivia Nelson-Ododa, amongst others.

Picture by Chris Coduto/Getty Photographs

Cloud, one of many WNBA’s premier guard defenders, averaged 11.5 factors, 6.9 assists, 4.1 rebounds, and 1.4 steals in Phoenix final season.

Mabrey, who was traded to Connecticut in July, additionally requested a commerce, nevertheless it seems the Solar wish to maintain onto each guards. Mabrey averaged 14.9 factors and shot 42.4% from three in the course of the a part of the season she spent as a Solar.

Charles, in the meantime, returns to the franchise that drafted her 15 years after her WNBA profession started. The WNBA’s second-leading all-time scorer, and all-time main rebounder, signed a one-year cope with the Solar final month.

Meziane will work to maintain Connecticut aggressive regardless of the numerous quantity of roster turnover, and in Cloud, Mabrey, and Charles, he has three veteran gamers who’ve considerably produced all through their careers. Beneath Meziane, the brand new additions to the Solar teaching employees will work to maximise that expertise.