MALIBU, Calif. — One week after making his first two hires, Pepperdine first-year head women's basketball coach Tim Hays finalized his staff by hiring assistant coaches Kelsey Keizer and Rabun Wright.
Keizer and Wright boast a combined 19 years of women's college basketball experience across almost all levels of the sport. Keizer has spent the last nine years as the head coach of Southwest Baptist University — a Division II school competing in the Great Lakes Valley Conference — whereas Wright was most recently an assistant coach at Jacksonville State University out of the ASUN Conference. They join fellow assistant coaches Kianna Ray and Shawn Faust, who were hired last week.
With 12 years of experience at Southwest Baptist, including nine years of head coaching experience, Keizer's teams have had success not only by winning 115 games during her nine-year head coaching tenure, but also by amassing a 3.25 grade-point average or higher for nine straight seasons.
"Kelsey Keizer has been someone that I have had the pleasure of watching coach and mentor teams for the past 10 years," Hays said. "Her passion for the game, relational connections and ability to lead players to reach their highest potential both on and off the court made her a perfect fit for our program."
Playing in two competitive Division II leagues in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association and the Great Lakes Valley Conference, Keizer's teams notched five wins over ranked Division II teams, including an upset win over #1 Fort Hays State in the 2015-16 season. As a head coach, Keizer helped seven players earn all-conference honors and one — Caylee Richardson — make the Division II Freshman All-American team in 2015-16. That same year, Keizer earned a spot on the WBCA's 30 Under 30 coaches list.
Aside from basketball, Keizer was Southwest Baptist's Fellowship of Christian Athletes advisor, and before getting into coaching, she worked with Athletes in Action as an international intern while playing professionally for Sparta Praha in the Czech Basketball Federation.
As a player, Keizer was a four-year letter winner for the Drake Bulldogs, a Division I team competing in the Missouri Valley Conference. Keizer hit the game-winning shot that helped the Bulldogs win the MVC Tournament Title and punch their ticket to the 2007 NCAA Tournament as a sophomore. She graduated with bachelor's degrees in finance and business administration in 2009 and later earned her master's in athletic administration from Southwest Baptist in 2013. She got her start coaching in the 2009-10 season by serving as a student assistant coach at her alma mater, where she helped develop the Bulldogs' post players.
Wright, like Keizer, has playing and coaching experience across several levels of college basketball. Most recently as an assistant coach at Jacksonville State, Wright developed the Gamecocks' guards, and was instrumental in recruiting the NJCAA's leading scorer, Jaz Spencer, to Jacksonville, Ala., Under Wright's direction in 2021-22, the Gamecocks went 24-8 — the program's first 20-win season in the Division I era — and made the postseason for the first time in the Division I era with a WNIT berth.
"Rabun Wright is a tremendous recruiter and teacher of the game," Hays said. "She has made a tremendous impact at a very successful program at Jacksonville State. She creates deep, meaningful connections with players and knows how to bring the best out of every student-athlete's gifts and abilities."
Prior to her time in Division I, Wright was an assistant coach at Florida SouthWestern State for three years, in which the Buccanneers won three-straight Suncoast Conference Champions and made back-to-back NJCAA National Tournament appearances. During her tenure, seven of her Florida SouthWestern players signed with Division I teams, two players signed with Division II teams and three earned NJCAA All-American honors.
Wright got her start in coaching as a graduate assistant at Shorter University, a Division II institution located in Rome, Ga. before she was elevated to an assistant coach for the 2017-18 season. Before coaching at Shorter, she worked multiple sports ministry positions overseas in Malta, Italy and Germany. In Malta, she worked with the International Olympic Committee while helping train players competing on Malta's national team.
A native of Wright, Ga., Wright was a three-year varsity letter-winner at the University of North Alabama. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in mass communications and broadcast journalism in 2015 and would later earn her master's in sports administration from Shorter University.
With a full staff in tow, Hays aims to improve upon Pepperdine's 11-19 record from last season, which included a second-round appearance in the West Coast Conference Championships.
