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NM State women’s basketball coach Jody Adams has had a busy recent few weeks, signing coaches and players.
Joining the Aggies as Adams’ associate head coach is James Frey, who had a gaudy 306-61 record in 11 years as head coach at South Georgia Technical College, a junior college in Americus, Georgia. Coming with Frey are two of his former players and an assistant coach.
Loes Rozing is a 5-10 junior guard originally from the Netherlands who played two seasons for Frey at SGTC. Feme Sikuzani Masudi is a 6-5 graduate student center originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo who played two years at SGTC, and then last year was at the University of Texas in Austin. Maka Jackson was a coach and recruiter for Frey last year at SGTC. Originally from Hawaii, Jackson played collegiately at Texas Tech and Utah.
Another new assistant coach, Bridgette Gordon, just might be the only person in Las Cruces with an Olympic gold medal, which she won in 1988 as a player with the U.S. women’s basketball team in Seoul, South Korea. Gordon was part of two national championship teams at Tennessee, and was the Final Four MVP in 1989. As a coach, she has worked with seven different Division I programs, including Wichita State, where she coached with Adams.
In addition to Rozing and Masudi, the Aggies have signed three more players: Jaila Harding, 5-8 junior guard from Wichita, Kansas, who finished two seasons at Butler Community College; Maiya Bergdorf, 5-11 junior forward from Belmont, Massachusetts, who played at Three Rivers Community College and Sacred Heart; and Tylie Jones, 6-0 junior guard/forward from Rigby, Idaho, a transfer from College of Southern Idaho.
The signings will help replace several departed Aggies, including Tayelin Grays, Shania Harper, Soufia Inoussa, Moe Shida and Janessa Johnson, who all exhausted their eligibility last season as seniors.
NM State was 18-17 last year in Adams’ first season, including a 10-8 record in Western Athletic Conference play. That was an improvement over the 2021-22 season, when the Aggies finished 10-19, and 6-12 in the WAC.
Next season will be the Aggies’ first in Conference USA.
