{"id":828209,"date":"2026-07-28T02:51:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T02:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828209\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T02:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T02:51:12","slug":"womens-basketball-adds-two-to-coaching-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828209\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Basketball adds two to coaching staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

HUNTSVILLE\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Sam Houston women’s basketball head coach Ravon Justice<\/a> has announced the hirings of Steven Gilbert and Zavior Alvarez to the coaching staff for the upcoming 2026-27 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gilbert joins the staff after spending the past three seasons as the head coach at Ranger College while Alvarez spent the past three seasons at Nevada,\u00a0assisting\u00a0with the Wolf\u00a0Pack.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’m genuinely excited about the additions of both Steven and Zavior and look forward to having them on the sidelines with me,” Justice said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gilbert joined the staff after two seasons as the head coach at Ranger College. His time at Ranger followed a successful stint as the video coordinator for Syracuse in 2023\u201324. While with the Orange, the team posted a 24\u20138 record, earned a spot in the final AP Top 25 poll, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 32. The program also produced a WNBA Draft\u00a0selection\u00a0under his tenure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before Syracuse, Gilbert served as an assistant coach for the LIU women’s basketball team in 2022\u201323. As co-defensive coordinator, he played a key role in post player development, scouting, and recruiting. His efforts helped the Sharks close the regular season with four wins in their final five games and earn a spot in the Northeast Conference Tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Steven’s ability to teach and unlock our players’ potential is particularly exciting,” Justice said. “I believe his leadership will greatly benefit our team in every aspect of the program.”\u00a0

\n\u00a0

\nIn the 2021\u201322 season, Gilbert was an assistant coach at Northwest Florida State College, contributing to a dominant 27\u20133 campaign. The Raiders were ranked No. 1 in the nation for 12 straight weeks and captured the FCSAA State\/NJCAA District Championship with a decisive 81\u201340 victory over Indian River State College.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gilbert began his coaching journey on the AAU circuit with Showtime Hoops (1 Family), where he led both the 12U and 17U teams. He also spent four years coaching at the high school level in Florida and New Mexico, guiding multiple teams to\u00a0state\u00a0tournament appearances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His first collegiate coaching position was at Neosho County CC, where he served as lead assistant overseeing recruiting, scouting, skill development, and defense. He later took over as head coach at Colorado Northwestern CC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A native of Jacksonville, Fla., Gilbert starred at Trinity Christian Academy, amassing over 1,773 points and 1,256 rebounds in his high school career. He went on to play collegiately at Webber International University.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gilbert holds a bachelor’s degree in biological science from Florida State (2013) and a master’s degree in secondary education from Grand Canyon (2017).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alvarez joins the staff after two seasons at Gulf Coast State College where he helped the Lady Commodores to\u00a0a\u00a042-16\u00a0overall record in that time. He worked closely with several players who earned All-Panhandle Conference honors and moved to on to four-year schools, including Clara Koulibaly to Auburn and NJCAA All-American\u00a0Ja’Navia\u00a0Gage who moved\u00a0on to Charlotte after the 2024-25 season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Zavior is a young, energetic coach with valuable experience in the junior college ranks, where he focused on player development and recruiting,” Justice said. “His enthusiasm and dedication will be tremendous assets to our program.\u00a0

\n\u00a0

\nHe\u00a0joined the Lady Commodores’ staff after a two-year stint\u00a0at\u00a0Nevada\u00a0where he\u00a0entered\u00a0as a graduate assistant\u00a0and\u00a0was\u00a0given\u00a0the promotion to the role of Player\u00a0Development\u00a0prior to the 2023-24 season\u00a0where\u00a0he was given an active role in recruiting\u00a0and on-court coaching and development. He\u00a0assisted\u00a0in seeing the Wolf Pack to a fourth-place finish in a highly competitive Mountain West Conference\u00a0that season, finishing with a .500 overall record and a 10-8 record in conference play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prior to Nevada, Alvarez got his start in the coaching profession as a practice player for the UTEP women’s basketball program before being elevated to an undergraduate assistant prior to the 2018-2019 season. Alvarez\u00a0assisted\u00a0the Miners’ staff in all aspects of the program\u00a0in\u00a0his four-year stint from 2018-2022.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his playing days, Alvarez was an All-City basketball player at Del Valle High School in El Paso. He went on to play point guard at TaylorMade Prep in Pensacola, Fla. before\u00a0ultimately returning\u00a0to El Paso. Alvarez followed his playing career by receiving his undergraduate degree in Business Administration with a focus in Entrepreneurship from UTEP in 2022. He then received his\u00a0master’s degree in Justice Management\u00a0from Nevada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HUNTSVILLE\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Sam Houston women’s basketball head coach Ravon Justice has announced the hirings of Steven Gilbert and Zavior Alvarez…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-828209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}