Haynie: Building Trust and Taking Steps in Rebuilding the Program

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – Personnel? Kristin Haynie will get to that.

For now, it's about installing, instilling and building trust.

Haynie, the first-year Central Michigan women's basketball coach, met the media on Thursday, three weeks ahead of CMU's season opener at South Alabama.

"Defense is our identity," said Haynie, who was named to head the program in which she served as an assistant from 2014-17. "We do defensive drills daily, several of them. You can't control if the ball goes in every night. We're going to have times where we struggle scoring. But you never struggle on defense. Defense is an energy, an attitude, it's an effort thing."

And if it was only about effort and attitude, the Chippewas might go undefeated.

Haynie, a standout player at Michigan State and in the WNBA, is tasked with pulling the proud program out of the depths of back-to-back season in which it won a combined 10 games.

And, like every program in the country, CMU must deal with the transfer portal, the double-edged sword that gives and takes. The Chippewas lost two top talents to the portal in Sydney Harris and Bridget Utberg, but gained in the old-fashioned way by bringing in a pair of talented freshmen in point guard Tamara Ortiz and Desrae Kyles.

The 6-foot-5 Kyles joins 6-5 Rochelle Norris – herself a transfer who made a splash in 2022-23, her first season at CMU – and 6-2 Nadège Jean, giving CMU a formidable front court.

"We're not going to have one player scoring 29 points, it's going to be more by committee, which is good because it's harder (for defenses) to guard, harder to scout," Haynie said.

Norris and Jean are two of seven players who remain from last season. Sophomore guard Taylor Anderson, whose playing time and production increased steadily a year ago, is a budding star.

"They're buying in, they're trusting the system," Haynie said. "It takes time, it's a process, but we're definitely excited for the season.

"We always talk about that how you do one thing is how you do everything. We live by that. The kids who don't get it done off the floor won't be able to get it done on the floor. We want to recruit a well-rounded student-athlete and person."

That, like the transfer portal, is a two-way street: The players must earn the trust of the coaching staff and vice versa. And that involves a major trust element, and it's one that Haynie has cultivated since she took over the program last spring.

"It's not rocket science," she said. "It's just getting to know your people. I'm not just a coach coaching you every day. You can't build trust like that, in my eyes.

"Take them out to eat, have a one-on-one conversation with them outside the facility. We might not always talk about hoops; we're talking about life, we're talking about what they want to do after basketball. It's our job to prepare them for life; not just get them better on the court, but off the court and make them be successful.

"They come in as teen-ager and they leave as young adults. We've got to prepare them for life after basketball and what that looks like. We care. We genuinely care about them as people."

Haynie: Building Trust and Taking Steps in Rebuilding the Program

Players Mentioned

Taylor Anderson

Sydney Harris

Desrae Kyles

Rochelle Norris

Tamara Ortiz

Bridget Utberg

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