Coach B’s ‘Lab’ gets Bulldogs ready
PERKINSTON — It's known as The Lab. When a Mississippi Gulf Coast women's basketball player wants to get her game better, she hits up Coach B and Dantzler Arena converts into a laboratory to make it happen.
Assistant Coach Carla Bartee is in her second year on the Bulldogs staff, and her hard work is always quickly mentioned by head coach Hope Adams. Minutes after Gulf Coast clinched a share of the school's first MACCC title since 2000, Coach B was getting her flowers.
"I can't go without thanking Coach Bartee," Adams said outside the locker room in Summit that night. "She's my right hand, and she's the foundation of this program. She works with these young ladies and makes my job really, really easy. She builds up their confidence, and she prepares them individually. I'm overwhelmed with joy to be in this moment."
Gulf Coast is 23-4 and opens play in the NJCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship on Wednesday in Casper, Wyo. Tipoff is scheduled for 1:15 pm CT, and all games before the finals will be broadcast on ESPN+.
The Bulldogs face Three Rivers (27-4) from Poplar Bluff, Mo., in the first round. The tournament concludes with Monday's national championship game, which will be televised on ESPNU.
One big reason Gulf Coast is making its first trip to the national tournament since 1977 is Bartee's individual skill development sessions in The Lab.
Look no further than the Bulldogs' do-everything sparkplug Tytiana Buckley. The sophomore guard from Meridian had holes in her game when she got on campus last year. She wasn't comfortable going to her left, and she lacked confidence in her jumper.
This year, she finished fourth in the MACCC shooting 3-pointers at a 37.0 percent clip. She was the ninth-leading scorer at nearly 14 points a game, and she made a living on the left wing driving baseline with that left hand.
"If you go to her and say, I need help with this, she's going to make time for your no matter what she has on her schedule," Buckley said. "She's going to make time to help you. That's what I love about Coach B. She puts us before her no matter what. We've got the best assistant coach around, if you ask me."
Bartee, who starred at Wayne County High School, played at Western Kentucky before transferring to Ole Miss for three seasons. She played professionally in Sweden, Germany and Romania, where she was an All-League First Team performer.
"My goal is to make sure is I'm tightening any loose screws in their games, their weakness," she said. "When they're being recruited, we know they can shoot or whatever their strength is. To get fundamentally sound, I focus on their weakness and try to make it a strength so they become whole."
Adams and Bartee subsequently take those individual skills and plug them into the team concept.
Buckley is being recruited by Division I schools like Louisiana-Monroe and Queens University in Charlotte, N.C. Mississippi College is also interested, and she'll be taking official visits after the Bulldogs wrap up play in Wyoming.
Gulf Coast doesn't have any transfers on its roster. All its players have been recruited to play at Perkinston, and Bartee smooths the rough spots off the Bulldog players to make them D-I targets. All four sophomores will wind up playing at the next level.
Simaru Fields (So., Pass Christian/Gulfport) has signed with Old Dominion, and Ja'Sharreah Hunt (So., Roxie/Franklin County) will be playing at Southeastern Louisiana. Je'Mya Evans (So., Gulfport/Harrison Central) has offers piling up and will take visits after the national tourney, too.
"We make sure we make kids better because these aren't D-I transfers coming in," Adams said. "They need to be polished to be attractive to Division I coaches. Carla is unique in what she does for her program. I wish people could come in the gym in July when the players get here so they could see what we're talking about, see how much they grow in the process. I can't give her enough credit."
For more information on MGCCC's 11 intercollegiate athletic teams, follow @MGCCCBulldogs on Twitter and MGCCCBulldogs on Facebook, and go to mgcccbulldogs.com.
