JACKSON, Miss. (Feb. 10, 2022) – In every sports season, nearly every conference in America has its power program. In Southwestern Athletic Conference women's basketball, Jackson State University is undeniably it.
Sporting an unblemished conference record of 11-0 through the first half of the 2021-22 season, and an impressive 13-6 record overall, the JSU Lady Tigers will open the second half of the race for the SWAC regular-season championship at home in the Lee E. Williams Athletics and Assembly Center with a 3 p.m. matchup against Florida A&M University on Saturday, followed by a 5:30 p.m. date with Bethune-Cookman University on Monday.
Tomekia Reed, the fourth-year head coach of the Lady Tigers, says she has been extremely pleased with the play of her team so far.
"So far, we're playing extremely competitive," said Reed. "Early on at the start of the season, I was a little bit worried about the chemistry we would have because we brought in so many top-caliber, elite players. But once we got into the season, everything has been meshing pretty well. Right now, I'm thankful about how competitive we've been out-of-conference and in-conference. We've been really dominant in-conference."
In their previous matchup, JSU defeated the FAMU Lady Rattlers by a score of 90-34 in Tallahassee, Fla. Two days earlier in Daytona Beach, Fla., the Lady Tigers had beaten the BCU Lady Wildcats to the tune of 82-49. In their 11 SWAC games played to date, JSU has beaten conference opponents by an average of 26.4 points a game and outrebounded them by a margin of 17.0 per contest.
What's been the secret for the success Reed and her team are enjoying?
Well, it's no secret at all. It's the bevy of elite players that Reed and her staff have stockpiled in the program.
For beginners, there's Ameshya Williams, a 6-4 senior center from Gulfport, Miss. and a transfer from Mississippi State. Already one of the top players in the country when she joined Reed's program, she has gone on to capture SWAC defensive player of the year honors in back-to-back seasons. This year, she should easily be able to add SWAC player of the year to her resume as she enters this weekend's games with averages of 19.8 points and 12.5 rebounds a game. Says Reed, "Ameshya makes a lot of noise for us and she's the person that we work around."
Then there's Dayzsha Rogan, a 5-4 senior guard from Ripley, Miss. and the reigning SWAC player of the year. Called by Reed "our energy bunny and the one that gets us going," Rogan ranks right behind Williams in scoring with an average of 14.8 points a game.
Miya Crump, a transfer from the University of Houston who led that program in scoring, rebounding and steals, is a 6-2 redshirt junior forward from Houston, Tex. who averages 8.0 points and 4.4 rebounds for JSU. Reed calls her a "big, tall athletic player who can not only compete in-conference, but out-of-conference as well."
For Jackson State women's basketball, the list of marquee players go on and on.
Daja Woodard, a Mobile, Ala. native and 6-3 redshirt junior forward who transferred to JSU from Minnesota, averages 9.3 points and 8.4 rebounds. Called "an above-the-rim kind of player" by her coach, Woodard can dunk the basketball, though she hasn't done that in a game so far for JSU.
LaMiracle Sims (6-1, Sr., F), Keshuna Luckett (5-6, Jr., G) and Jariyah Covington make up a trio of players which is just as good as any in the conference. Sims is an Alabama-Birmingham transfer who averages 4.9 points and 5.1 boards a game, while Luckett ranks third on the team in scoring at 10.8 points per game. Covington, meanwhile, is the team's sixth man, coming off the bench with her averages of 7.6 points, 2.7 assists and 2.4 rebounds.
Waiting in the wings for the Lady Tigers is Daphane White, a transfer from Houston who won't see action until next season. The 6-5 junior center from Gulfport is a five-star player who was ranked the No. 6 player in the country by ESPN when she left UH.
Reed credits her staff, including assistant coaches LaShonda Cousin, Jonathan Williams and Chase Campbell, for impacting the team's level of success with their management, recruiting and development skills. She says there are also three other big reasons why the program is so successful.
"Our athletics director (Ashley Robinson) does a great job of providing us the resources we need to be competitive," says Reed, "and having Prime (Deion Sanders) here on campus with the resources he brings has certainly opened the door for us to be able to recruit more talented and high-caliber athletes. Also, people want to play for a winning program, so the success we've had has helped us tremendously."
