The banners within Alico Arena didn’t blink Monday morning, but the voice on the baseline did.
Raina Harmon opened her first official practice with the FGCU women’s basketball team, aiming to uphold the standards the Eagles have built while changing the cadence and the energy around the program into a new type of excitement.
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“It was really fun,” Harmon said. “For the last couple of weeks, I keep asking myself, every time we get off the floor, like what is happening to the time? Because we’ve been restricted to four hours, we can open up with 20 this week. I felt like I could kind of slow down, and have a lot more teaching points today. I thought they had great communication and great effort on day one.”
Big game on tap: FGCU to host women’s national basketball power South Carolina at Alico Arena in December
Harmon was brought on nearly six months ago from Iowa, hired on April 4 after Chelsea Lyles resigned from the position on March 24 to join former FGCU coach Karl Smesko with the Atlanta Dream. Facing a large roster turnover before her hiring, the number of players she had to replace looked to be astronomically high, until Cerina Rolle and Maca Retamales both withdrew their names from the transfer portal, leaving her with five returnees from last year’s team.
Nay Staton, #0 of the Florida Gulf Coast University Women’s basketball team drives to the basket during the first offical practice on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025.
The Eagles will be breaking in seven new players, including Towson transfer Nay Staton and Michigan State transfer Sinai Douglas. Returning to the program this year includes Rolle, Retamales, Karina Gordon, Anna Mortag, and Jordan Campbell, who was offered a full scholarship from Harmon in the first team meeting of the year.
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“I had no idea it was coming at all,” Campbell said. “It was the first meeting of the season, and I was just sitting in the film room, listening to coach Raina talk. It was a really good feeling. It took me off guard, but I was so happy. Even for a few days after that, I was just in shock. I really couldn’t believe it.”
Despite so many new pieces this year, Rolle and the team have had strong cohesion in the short amount of time they’ve been on the floor together, something that Harmon has put a major emphasis on before the start of the year. Rolle’s expected to play a role on this year’s team once again, having averaged 7.3 points, 4.4 rebounds, and an assist per game.
“We’ve actually gotten very close at the beginning,” Rolle said. “I feel like everybody has a great personality and everybody is very open with one another, which is very, very important for a team. We just take that as an advantage, and we put it all on the court and outside of the gym as well.
“We have the same goals. Every time, we want to win the ASUN. That’s our main goal, getting another ring. We want to keep having competition in March Madness. We want to keep going until the ball stops.”
Cerina Rolle, #3, of the Florida Gulf Coast University Women’s basketball team drives to the basket during the first offical practice on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025.
And getting rings is what FGCU has always done. The Eagles have been the class of the Atlantic Sun Conference since beginning Division I play in 2007-08, winning 15 regular-season titles, 11 ASUN tournament titles, and making 11 NCAA Tournament appearances, with all but last season coming under Smesko before he left for the WNBA. Lyles took over two games into the 2024-25 season and led the team back to the NCAA Tournament before her departure.
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Smesko’s five-out style often presented challenges for opposing teams with the number of rotations he could run with five shooters on the floor. Harmon’s rotations are still to be determined, but hopes that a good chunk of her roster will be able to carve out roles before the season commences.
“That’ll kind of just work itself out as we go,” Harmon said. “I don’t want to put a cap on anybody, because then if you start limiting people in October, that’s going to be tough for them to show you who they are through the rest of the season. We do have a closed scrimmage this year, we do have an exhibition game this year, and I think as we start to get rolling through our nonconference, we’ll start to settle in and see who we’re going to have big contributions from.”
Sinai Douglas. #11, of the Florida Gulf Coast University Women’s basketball team drives to the basket durin the first offical practice on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025.
With the amount of success and prestige that surrounded Harmon in Iowa City for eight years – Caitlin Clark, Kate Martin, Megan Gustafson, Gabbie Marshall and Lucy Olsen among them – and the guiding hands of former coach Lisa Bluder and Jan Jensen, the circle of support Harmon has given and received over the years has been considerable.
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As for the advice Harmon may have gotten from Bluder and Jansen in her first head coaching gig?
“Trust my gut,” Harmon said with a smile. “I’m ready. They just let me fly. Pun intended.”
Follow Sports Reporter Alex Martin on X: @NP_AlexMartin. For the best sports coverage in Southwest Florida, follow @newspresssports and @ndnprepzone on Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: FGCU women, Raina Harmon set to showcase new-look Eagles squad this fall
