Last Sunday Samford beat Chattanooga 72-67 in the SoCon women’s tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to next week’s NCAA tournament. The Bulldogs made back-to-back NCAA tourney appearances in 2011/2012 but had to wait 14 years before making it back there this month. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Samford assistant coach Charity Brown about being a great PG and making the NCAA tourney.
As a SR at Samford you were named 3rd-team All-SoCon: what did it mean to you to receive such an outstanding honor? It was great. We worked so hard, especially during my senior year, but I was never about the awards and always put the team 1st.
You led the league that year with 5.8 APG and you still hold the school record with 511 career AST: what is the secret to being a great PG? As I said above: always putting the team 1st with whatever they needed. From my freshman year the team knew that I could create for myself, but I also tried to create for others to instill confidence in my teammates. That is just how I grew up: I just tried to give the team whatever it needed.
In the 2020 SoCon tourney title game you scored 14 PTS in a 5-PT win over UNCG: what did it mean to you to win a title, and what was your reaction like 4 days later when you learned that the NCAA tourney was being canceled due to COVID? That game was amazing. We beat them twice during the regular season, so we knew that the 3rd time would be a tough game. We beat Furman in the SoCon tourney after getting swept by them in the regular season. We celebrated very hard after winning the title because it was very special, then had a couple days to rest. We did not realize that COVID was that big a deal: even when we got back to campus, we just heard a little chatter here and there. I remember getting a call when the NCAA tourney was canceled: it was a shock, but I joke that I ended my career on a winning note, which most people do not get to do! We had 8 seniors on that team and did not get to see each other again until the ring ceremony after going straight home, but I am still best friends with a lot of girls on that team.
You also rank in the top-10 with 501 career REB: how were you able to balance all the different aspects of your game? When I was growing up, I would play “21” against the boys, and if I wanted to stay on the court then I had to rebound the ball. I could never “jump out of the gym” but I could still jump. Nobody expects the PG to get a lot of rebounds, so it made things a little easier for me. I remember 1 time when I had a bad game where I did not have many PTS/AST, but my coach said she knew that something was wrong because I did not have a single REB.
You were hired as an assistant coach at your alma mater 3 years ago: why did you take the job, and how it is going so far? It is going GREAT so far! I played at Samford for 4 years and loved everything about it: not just the winning, but the relationships I built with people who became my friends for life. My phone was blowing up during the title game last weekend with videos of my friends crying tears of joy. I am from Tuscaloosa, which is right down the street, and my younger brother was playing basketball, so I got to spend a lot more time around him. I know that I work well with certain types of people: we are going to compete but also have fun. When I got the call to come back here, it was a no-brainer.
You work for Coach Matt Wise: what makes him such a good coach, and what is the most important thing that you have learned from him so far? I worked with him for a few years and learned so much from him. He is super-smart, so now that I work for him it has made me a better coach. We are very hands-on in practice: he might teach something 1 day and then let us teach it the next day. Having to teach on the court rather than sit on the sidelines has allowed me to learn a lot. The key is that we are always on the same page: anytime the girls have a question, we always have an answer due to our united front.
You finished the regular season 13-18: how on earth were you able to turn things around in March to win the SoCon tourney title? We knew that it was all about the journey. We have a very young team (both players/coaches) and I do not know if the players knew exactly how well they could play. We did not take those losses as a bad thing: we learned from all 18 of them, and when we lost we did not beat them up too badly and tried to keep it as positive as possible. I would be lying if I said that I knew it would happen this year, but I knew we had the talent in the locker room, so we talked about peaking at the right time. Our girls could have folded but then we got back up. We lost on Senior Night right before the conference tourney, then had to go through a bunch of teams who beat us twice during the regular season, and then beat the #1 seed in the title game. We continued to grow throughout the entire season and never had a fixed mindset.
Your highest-ranked opponent this year was Minnesota (who is currently #18 in the nation): what makes them so great? We played a lot of games against those kinds of good teams. As coaches we feel that games like that make us better. The Gophers exploited a lot of our weaknesses, but that helped us learn/grow/prepare.
Your leading scorer this year was Kaylee Yarbrough: how was she able to make such a great contribution despite being a freshman who only started 10 games? She is such a great player/person. She committed to Samford before I even got the job. I saw her work out once at her high school, then came back and told my fellow coaches that she could shoot the ball with great form and had some swag about her. She works very hard and always wants to get shots up in the gym. She had a little adversity and had to sit out a couple of games earlier this season, but after she got her rhythm back you can see what she did.
What kind of seed do you think you deserve, and what kind of seed do you think you will get? There are so many predictions out there, but we are just focusing on ourselves. We get to practice again and compete and keep growing, which should bleed into next year. It does not matter who we get next week: we did what we were supposed to do and are really excited about winning our tourney.
