With the Women’s Basketball season set to begin in November, head coach Carlene Mitchell has announced a number of changes to her coaching staff throughout the summer including a new name as the director of basketball operations, Ramia Griffin.
Griffin joins the staff along with Advit Raghavan and Trevor Olson. Griffin is joining the Matadors as the director of basketball operations for the Matadors as well as the video coordinator for a new program that was also recently announced.
During the 2022-23 season, Griffin served as the video coordinator at UC Irvine. She assisted the program with travel planning, scouting, and off-court player development. Irvine would go on to win its first ever Big West regular season championship before the program advanced to postseason play, appearing in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT) last year.
“Ramia is very familiar with the Big West, and just a hard worker and willing to do whatever it takes for the program to be very successful and help me to do the things I do best behind the scenes as well,” Coach Mitchell said.
Just a few weeks prior to Griffin’s hiring, the addition of Advit Raghavan was announced. Carlene Mitchell added the assistant coach to the staff after Raghavan spent the previous two years as the director of basketball operations for the women’s basketball team at Southern Utah University.
Prior to his stint in Southern Utah, Raghavan helped oversee a complete program turnaround at Pacific University where he served as an assistant coach. The team went from eight to seventeen wins during the 2019-20 season, the program would go on to make its first home Northwest Conference playoff appearance since 1996.
In July, Trevor Olson joined the staff as an assistant coach. Olson comes to CSUN after spending six seasons at the University of San Diego where he served as an assistant coach. During his time at San Diego, the Toreros reached the postseason and advanced to the second round of the WNIT. Olson also oversaw the development of the guard position where he coached the 2022 WCC defensive player of the year, Jodyrn Edwards and four All-WCC second team honorees.
“I just want to bring my knowledge of what it takes to compete at a high level, bring that to our problem, try to implement it into our culture, and help Coach Mithcell so we can be one of the top three teams in the Big West,” Olson said.
After the Matadors finished 7-24 last season, Carelene Mitchell is hoping that with these new additions the program will receive a boost going into next season.
“We feel very solid about having those elements in place. I’m a competitor and I want to win, but I want to win the right way,” Coach Mithcell said. “We’re not going to take any shortcuts of trying to get the win over what is best for our students athletes.”
