Recently-appointed UCSB Women’s Basketball head coach Renee Jimenez emphasized her excitement and commitment towards building a family with her student-athletes in her introductory press conference on Friday.
“I’m so excited to be a part of your Gaucho family,” Jimenez said. “We know that to be a great team, we care deeply about each other.”
Jimenez takes over the position following Bonnie Henrickson’s retirement after 27 seasons as a head coach in the NCAA, the last nine of which were spent with the Gauchos.
Described as a “student-first leader with strong ties to the Gaucho community” by UCSB Athletic Director Kelly Barsky, Jimenez is no stranger to California’s central coast.
Jimenez grew up in Ventura and both watched and played basketball in Santa Barbara during her youth.
“I spent a lot of time up here as a kid,” Jimenez said, noting how her journey has come full circle. “I played AAU games in Rob Gym. I actually won a Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions in my senior year of high school in the Thunderdome. I cheered on Coach [Mark] French’s team when they went to the Sweet Sixteen.”
She began her coaching career as an assistant at Stanford before moving onto San Diego State in another assistant role.
Jimenez boasts 15 years of head coaching experience at the Division II level, making her head coaching debut at Cal State Monterey Bay in 2008.
After five seasons and one CCAA Championship with the Otters, Jimenez coached for two seasons at Cal State San Bernardino from 2013-2015.
She then spent the last eight seasons at the helm of Cal State San Marcos, where she led the Cougars to one CCAA Championship and three Division II NCAA Tournament appearances, including a Final Four appearance this past March.
Jimenez isn’t intimidated by making the jump from Division II to Division I.
“In terms of where my program was at [Cal State] San Marcos, we finished top-five this year in the country,” Jimenez said. “We’d be extremely competitive with a lot of the lower Division I schools, so I don’t see there being a huge gap.”
Jimenez believes her background and familiarity with the Big West will contribute to her success.
“I’m really familiar with the Big West, I’m a West Coast kid,” Jimenez said. “It’s kind of all the basketball I watched growing up being a West Coast kid. I don’t think there’s going to be too big of a learning curve.
“Basketball is basketball, and I know I have some really talented players and we’re excited to be competitive next year.”
In fact, Jimenez plans on taking what she learned about family during her prior experiences to the Thunderdome.
“I want to continue my relationships with the student-athletes,” Jimenez said. “I think so much of it now is the relationships you build with your players. I think if they know that they can trust me and that I always want their best interests, the basketball is going to fall into place.”
Jimenez’s background in Division II offers her a unique perspective to keep her student-athletes’ best interests at heart.
“I also want them to have balance in their lives. I think in Division II, that’s a big piece of why our student-athletes have been really happy,” Jimenez said. “We made it a very family-oriented atmosphere. That’s what we intend to do here.”
On the court, fans can expect the Gauchos to play an “exciting brand of basketball” under Jimenez, who wants defense to be at the core of the Gauchos’ identity as a basketball team.
As for the other side of the ball, she said the team’s offensive identity will need to develop over time.
“Offensively, that’s to be determined. I like what’s in front of me. I think we have a lot of really good pieces,” Jimenez said. “I’m not a coach that comes in and is going to say, ‘This is the offense I run and we’re just going to square-peg-round-hole it.’ We’re going to work through this together.”
Jimenez described her goals as UCSB’s head coach as consistent postseason play, whether that be the NCAA Tournament, the WNIT or the WBIT.
“You’re competing to play in the postseason every year… Whether it’s the WNIT, the WBIT now, your goal is to play in the postseason,” Jimenez said.
“Going to any postseason play at any level is a great experience, and that’s what I want for these guys. Every year our goal should be to play into the postseason.”
Jimenez ended her press conference with a strong philosophy regarding successful seasons.
“There are two ways to end your season: you end your season because you get beat, or you end your season because there are no more games left to play,” Jimenez said.
“Regardless of what tournament that is, we want to be that team that’s ending their season because we were the champions and there were no more games left to play.”