Kayla DeCriscio was hired as a women's basketball assistant coach in June 2019, returning to the Titans after she spent the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons as a graduate assistant, handling Director of Basketball Operations duties for two seasons with Detroit Mercy.
She enters her first season as an assistant coach for the Titan women's basketball program in 2019-20.
DeCriscio spent the 2018-19 academic school year with Niagara University as the Director of Basketball Operations for the women's basketball team. She was responsible for all of the team travel arrangements, served as the director of the summer basketball camps and video coordinator, maintained the overall budget for the program, organized the team schedule and oversaw team managers and practice players, among other duties.
"I’m excited about bringing Kayla back to Detroit Mercy as our assistant coach," head coach Bernard Scott said at the time of her hiring. "I was looking for someone that was loyal, hard working, dependable and knowledgeable and she definitely is those things. She knows our standards and what we are all about here from being our graduate assistant for two years before leaving to become the director of operations at Niagara University. Adding a person like Kayla to our coaching staff makes our program better."
She was part of a Niagara staff that produced a First Team All-MAAC player and put six student-athletes of the MAAC All-Academic Team. The Purple Eagles also participated in the preseason WNIT tournament for the first time in school history.
DeCriscio first joined the Detroit Mercy women's basketball staff as a graduate assistant in August 2016. She coordinated all travel plans and made itineraries for each road trip and helped compile and maintain the travel budget. Other duties in her first stint with the Titans included serving as the assistant director for the summer basketball camps, helping prepare scouting reports and assisting with individual workouts and practices. During her first year on staff, the Titans reached the title game of the 2017 Horizon League Championship.
The Altoona, Penn. native served as an Assistant Coach for the PA Pride Grassroots Youth Program (AAU) team and also coached for the Next Level Basketball clinic during several summers, teaching basketball to athletes ranging from ages 6 to 17.
DeCriscio played four years of collegiate basketball at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown and served on the school's Student Athlete Advisory Committee, including as the President. She sank 170 3-pointers during her career for the Mountain Cats, leading the team in triples made and 3-point shooting percentage two times each, while also sinking eight 3-pointers in a game and connecting on 39-percent of shots from beyond the arc in her career.
DeCriscio is a 2016 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, where she earned two degrees, a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education: Mathematics and a B.S. in Applied Mathematics. She was named to the Dean's List in each semester of school.
She graduated with a Master of Arts degree in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Detroit Mercy in 2018.
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