After one year as the director of operations for the Pepperdine women’s basketball team, Kayla Reeves has been promoted to assistant coach ahead of the 2022-23 season.
Reeves joined Pepperdine in the summer of 2021 after spending the previous four seasons (2017-18 through 2020-21) at Puget Sound, where she was the lead assistant coach.
“We are thrilled to promote Kayla to assistant coach,” said head coach Kristen Dowling in June 2022. “She has shown she is more than deserving of this opportunity. Kayla has a great basketball mind, a diligent work ethic and a knack for player development. We are excited to get her on the court officially.”
“I am so thankful and excited for the opportunity to work alongside Coach Dowling and the rest of the coaching staff,” said Reeves at the time of her initial hiring. “I have known Coach for several years and love her ability to form lasting relationships and to empower our student-athletes on and off the court. I am excited to continue to grow in this profession and to help our student-athletes develop as players and people.”
Reeves was a graduate assistant at Gonzaga in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. The Bulldogs won the WCC and played in the NCAA Tournament in 2017, and competed in the Women’s NIT in 2016. She earned her master’s degree in sport and athletic administration in 2017.
She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in communications and a minor in psychology from Nevada in 2015 and played two seasons for the Wolf Pack. She was a Mountain West Conference Scholar-Athlete. Reeves also played at Sierra College, where she earned all-conference honors and a Big 8 title. The native of Auburn, Calif., spent her first college season at Lewis & Clark, which won a share of the Northwest Conference title in 2011.
