The New Mexico State women's basketball team opens the 2011-2012 season under the leadership of first year head coach Mark Trakh who takes over for Darin Spence. Trakh, previously the head coach at Pepperdine and Southern Cal, looks to build on the foundation left by Spence.

Joining Trakh's staff are Jamie Shadian, Tamara Inoue and graduate assistant Aarika Hughes. Shadian joins the staff from Tennessee State while Inoue was most recently at Santa Clara while Hughes played for Trakh at USC.

"I think I've got a great staff," said Trakh. "Jamie Shadian and Tamara Inoue are my co number ones. I'm really lucky to have my third assistant, Aarika Hughes, who played for me at USC."

Trakh, who likes to have a previous familiarity with his assistants, has known all three since their high school playing days. "When I coached high school ball I coached against Jamie and when I got the Pepperdine job she was a freshman at USF (San Francisco) and I coached against her for four years and she kinda kicked my tail in those four years," said Trakh. "She's a great on-floor coach and she's a tremendous fundraiser. We had over 200 people come to our tip-off banquet and Jamie organized that, pushed it in the community and raised a lot of money for the program. She's somebody that I've known for a long time that I'm very, very comfortable with."

Trakh recruited Inoue while coaching at Pepperdine, she would go on to Cal before transferring to Long Beach State and becoming a two-time All Big West performer. "She's a great floor coach, great X's and O's person as far as all the technical stuff, Facebook and Twitter, just a lot of marketing stuff," said Trakh. "They're both great recruiters. Tamara coached for seven years in Australia and has a great Australian connection," said Trakh. "She helped get a lot of those kids at Fresno State the last four years. They're both great great assistants and I'm really fortunate to have them."  Continue Reading This Post >>