Lady Commodores reload with international talent

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) – After finishing 5th at the NJCAA Tournament last season, the Gulf Coast Women’s Basketball team has almost an entirely new roster filled with international talent.

The Commodores returned just two players from the previous season: sophomore guard Alisha Murray and sophomore forward Clara Koulibaly.

As a freshman, Murray averaged 13.3 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game while earning First Team All-Panhandle Conference honors.

Gulf Coast was the No.1 ranked team in the NJCAA for much of the 2023-2024 season before their star forward, Isimenme Ozzy-Momodu, went down with a season-ending injury.

Now with 10 new players on the roster, fourth-year head coach, Rory Kuhn said the standard to compete for a national title remains the same.

“Got to remind, at least the two returners and everyone else they forget, at the point when Issy went down, we were 22-1 and number one in the country, we’d only lost one game,” So for them to suck it up, get over that and Clara step in, and everybody kind of rally around and then we finished fifth in the country, that’s a pretty darn good accomplishment. So, you know, I remind them of that, that they could do it without Issy and they can do it with new people now.”

Among the ‘Dores incoming class of recruits is 6’3″ sophomore forward, Janavia Gage. As a freshman at Weatherford College (TX), she averaged 16.4 points and 13.4 rebounds per game.

For the first time under Coach Kuhn, they have recruited no Division I transfers but he said they have tons of international talent.

“You know, I like overseas players,” Kuhn said. “So we’ve got another player from Brazil, a player from Spain, Canada, Tanzania and the Dominican Republic. So, we’re kind of covered. We have a few mixed in from the States. We got a couple of kids from Texas, Atlanta, you know, we got a mix of everything.”

With a full roster of 12 players, this will be the largest team in the Kuhn coaching era. He hopes they can avoid the injury bug this upcoming season.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to mypanhandle.com.