DETROIT (6/18/2020) -- New University of Detroit Mercy women's basketball assistant coach LaTanya Collins was named as part of AnnMarie Gilbert's coaching staff earlier this month, joining the Titan family. Collins comes to Detroit Mercy with ample coaching experience -- as an assistant and head coach -- spending more than 12 years in the profession.

Collins, a Richmond, Virginia native, comes to Detroit Mercy after spending last season as a head coach at Harford Community College in Maryland, where she lead the squad to a 22-4 record, including an eight-game win streak to begin the season. Collins has spent time in various roles including as an assistant coach at the Division I level at Coppin State, Marist, Radford and Virginia Tech.

In getting the know the new assistant coach a little better, Collins answered a few questions via a phone interview with DetroitTitans.com. Check out her full answers:

Q: What are you excited about with being in this current role as an assistant for the Titans and working with a new squad under coach Gilbert?
Collins: "I'm super excited to join the women's basketball program at the University of Detroit Mercy. I'm super excited, I really am. When coach Gilbert talked about me possibly joining and when she shared with me her vision for the program and where she thought we could go, I really thought that I could help her build a program here. I think that it has a lot of potential. I've had the opportunity to meet the girls, talking with them on Zoom calls, no face-to-face meetings right now, and I've been really impressed with their imaging and desire for change. That's where it all starts, change starts with wanting to change and they all want to change and they all feel deeply about that. I'm excited to be a part of it. They have all been super welcoming. I'm just excited to be part of something new here."

Q: How did you meet and get to know coach Gilbert?
Collins: "I met coach Gilbert years ago when she was at Michigan State. I was still very new in the business, maybe my second year, and I was out on the road recruiting and bumped into her and we talked briefly and exchanged numbers. She kind of took me under her wing and I was so excited, I took her at her word, she told me to call her and check in and I did. I called her like every other week. I'm a new coach, I'm going to do exactly what you say, you say 'check in' and I'm going to check in. I remember talking to her on the phone one day and her telling me how great my work ethic was. She said, 'one day I'm going to be a head coach and I'm going to hire you.' That really just resonated with me and it pushed me.

"After that, probably a year later, I applied for my first Division I assistant coaching job. I was nervous, but she gave me the confidence to say I believe in you. I ended up getting that job and I credit her for helping me step outside of my comfort zone. And then again, as we traveled on in our journeys, we didn't talk as much outside of that and then when I started coaching JUCO basketball, she followed back up with me. She started to recruit my players and although at that point we didn't talk about her hiring me or anything along those lines, but we used to talk on the phone for hours about the type of players that I coached and just talent that we've seen out there and just comparing our notes about different players and she would always say, 'you know, we both like the same players.' So just talking about our similarities, for me, seemed like a no-brainer to connect with her. We've had such good conversations prior to that over the span of over 10 years. Sometimes stuff in the universe doesn't happen immediately, but eventually, it does."

Q: Can you talk a little about your coaching background and style, influences and philosophies?
Collins: "My coaching style, I think, is very similar to coach Gilbert's, we actually scrimmaged them this year, so I did get a chance, up close and personal, get a chance to see what she does and my coaching style is very similar to her's, it's fast-paced basketball. We are very committed to defense. In my program, we played hard on defense. We had a motto of making everyone take a contested shot. Everyone has to work for points that they get against us and takes contested shots.

"On offense, we were always looking for primary break opportunities and then we always had a secondary break, and then I love motion offenses, setting screens. I love motion offenses, I just think it gives your players and offense an opportunity to create scoring opportunities. I strongly believe that offenses should create scoring opportunities. We set a lot of screens, we work on cuts. I teach reads so that they can understand how to read when they are coming off of screens. I think in the day in age of scouting and game planning, you have favorite set plays, that you can teach players how to read and keep them sharp in going an optional way. There's always a counter on offense, you just have to think it through."

Q: Do you have any favorite coaches in the industry that you look up to?
Collins: "There are so many good coaches at so many different levels. There are a lot of coaches out there that are winning and winning consistently and winning is hard. The more you do (win), sometimes you take it for granted, but winning is hard. Because of media coverage, it is a little easier to be aware of coaches in the Power Five conferences but there are a lot of really good coaches. Dawn (Staley) has done a great job at South Carolina. Muffet (McGraw) at Notre Dame, you have to recognize what she's done there. But even beyond that, there are other Division I coaches especially in the MEAC, a lot of coaches in that league don't get the credit that they deserve. Vanessa (Blair-Lewis) at Bethune-Cookman, Tarrell Robinson at North Carolina A&T, both of them have been at the top of the league year after year.

"Even somebody like Ed Davis, who has been coaching forever, he's still at (Morgan State) in the MEAC, but he's won in the MEAC before, he's won in the CIAA and I think there's a lot of coaches at the JUCO level. You have (Dave) Kragel, who was at Walter State for 40 years and won a lot of championships. For me, I've had an opportunity to watch a lot of good coaches. I even look, one of my favorite coaches on the men's side is Steve Forbes, who was at East Tennessee State and just took the Wake Forest job. I enjoy watching what he has done with the program and enjoyed listening to him talk about player interactions. The other coach I study a lot on the men's side is Robert Jones at Norfolk State. He has won 75-percent of his conference games. I listened to a few Zoom professional development segments he did over COVID and picked up a few tips that I can't wait to incorporate.

"I think coaching is X's and O's, but I'm always interested to hear how other coaches motivate their players, who perform at the highest level, because that is an entity with coaching. I look at what Felisha Legette-Jack has done at Buffalo, amazing, she's been to the Sweet 16 and her story is just amazing. And then Michelle Clark-Heard at Cincinnati, I don't think you hear a lot about her, but she wins everywhere that she goes. She went from Louisville to coaching at a Division II school and she won there and now look at her, she's still continuing to win. Anybody who wins over a consistent period of time, it takes a lot of effort. I have to track them down and see what's going on -- you pick up bits and pieces from all over. I'm excited because I get to work with a coach who has won consistently for years, I'm excited about that as well."

Q: What kind of basketball player were you?
Collins: "I think I'm the same type of coach that I was as a player. What do you need done and that's what I got done on the court in my realm of capabilities. Whether as a rebounder or as a shot-blocker, I could knock down an open jump shot. What do you need? I wasn't afraid to do the dirty work. If I had to defend the basketball in order for us to win, that's what I did. If I had to get rebounds in order for us to win, then that's what I did. I wasn't the leading scorer on any of my teams, but I was always a leader. I don't think I ever played in college for a team that had a losing record. I always played a part in what was happening on the court and getting some of those wins. Whatever the coach needed, I would do it."

Q: You've coached at several different levels – do you have a favorite moment or memory throughout them all?
Collins: "One, maybe not a favorite moment, but an exciting moment was getting a chance to play UConn. That was exciting for me because I got a chance to prepare to play the best in the nation. It was exciting, it was challenging and for me, from a coaching standpoint, I've never coached in the league where we had played a team like that on a consistent basis. It was my first time playing or preparing against high-level competition. That to me was challenging and exciting.

"And then most recently at Harford, being able to end of the year with 20 wins was exciting and probably a huge accomplishment because of the fact that when I took over the program there, there were no players left over and it was July. It required me to complete a roster and to be able to have a competitive roster because they had a streak of seasons with 20-plus wins and I didn't want to be the coach that didn't get to 20 wins. So there's a history of winning, but there were no players. But the expectation was pretty high, so to be able to come in with no cards in the deck, add some and be able to win has to be one of my favorite memories. I was excited about that."

Q: What do you know about the city of Detroit?
Collins: "I'm slightly familiar with Detroit. I can't say that I know a lot about the city, but I went to JUCO in Flint and both years, my roommates were from Detroit and I was friends with a couple of the guys on the men's team and so I went to Detroit with them a lot and so I have been to Detroit several times. I'm looking forward to being in a city where they have professional teams. I'm excited about that. I want to go to games and support our local teams. I've been to a Red Wings game and a Pistons game (previously), so I'm looking forward to going to another one of both of those as well as supporting the other professional teams as well. That's probably the biggest highlight for me.

"I love the culture of the city, I love that there are so many things to do, so many museums and just so many things to do. Downtown, the last time I came to visit, was just so great. Of course, because of covid, there wasn't a whole lot of people out, but there are just all of these things and I thought, 'I can't wait for things to open back up.' I'm excited about that. I can't wait to explore once I get there. That's been the driving force for me, the excitement of when I'm going to start. As soon as they let fans in (to sporting events), I'm going to be one of them."