{"id":227652,"date":"2026-04-11T15:02:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T15:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/227652\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T15:02:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T15:02:40","slug":"ucf-womens-hoops-coach-gabe-lazo-leans-on-his-family-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/227652\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF women’s hoops coach Gabe Lazo leans on his family roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

The emotions were already building when Gabe Lazo<\/a> took to the podium after being introduced as the new UCF<\/a> women\u2019s basketball coach on Thursday.<\/p>\n

As Lazo began his remarks, his eyes welled up as he glanced down at his family sitting in the front row, particularly his mother, Adela, who sat directly in front of the stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a big believer that you win with people in life and this is incredible,\u201d said Lazo. \u201cHaving my family here, I\u2019m just letting you guys know I will get emotional at some point because my mother\u2019s here. So bear with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moments earlier, he posed with a personalized basketball jersey along with school president Alexander Cartwright and athletics director Terry Mohajir<\/a>. As he struggled to keep his emotions in check, Mohajir tossed him the jersey to use to wipe his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe did it all by herself. She raised me all by herself and she\u2019s my why and it motivates me to keep fighting in life,\u201d Lazo said of his mother.<\/p>\n

Lazo becomes the 14th person to coach the Knights\u2019 women\u2019s program since its inception in 1977. He replaces Sytia Messer<\/a>, who was fired on March 30 after four losing seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed a leader who could elevate this program in every way, recruiting, developing, connecting and competing for championships and NCAA play,\u201d Mohajir said of Lazo. \u201cWhen we went through the process, one name consistently rose to the top, not just because of what he\u2019s accomplished, but because of how he has done it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s earned the opportunity to be on this stage here tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GabeGabe Lazo was introduced as UCF’s new women’s basketball coach during a ceremony on Thursday at Addition Financial Arena. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/ Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

This is Lazo\u2019s first head coaching job in college after previously serving as an assistant at Tennessee, Mississippi State, George Washington, Stony Brook and FIU. He\u2019s long been considered one of the top recruiters in college basketball, but Lazo prefers a different terminology.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate the word recruiter. It\u2019s such a transactional word. I\u2019m a connector. I\u2019m about transformational relationships,\u201d Lazo said.<\/p>\n

Lazo will be tasked with rebuilding a roster that has already seen more than a handful of players enter the transfer portal, including starters Leah Harmon (15.7 points per game), Khyala Ngodu (11 ppg.) and Summer Yancy (6.5 ppg.). Other players entering the portal include Savannah Scott, Kayanna Cox, Logan Reed, Audreonia Benson and Samari Bankhead.<\/p>\n

The group comprises 88% (55.4 ppg.) of the team\u2019s scoring production from this past season.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the biggest challenge he\u2019s facing is drumming up support for the program. The Knights have finished in last place in average attendance in two of the past three seasons since joining the Big 12 in 2023. UCF averaged a league-worst 1,094 fans last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something that really matters to me, to our staff, we\u2019ve got to get in the community. We\u2019ve got to get in with these students,\u201d Lazo explained.<\/p>\n

Lazo, who is a Miami native, wants to connect with people through his Latino roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething that really attracts me to UCF is the population of Hispanic students,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re a Hispanic-serving university. I speak Spanish, so I hope we can connect.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrlando is so diverse, so many Latinos here, but it\u2019s who I am. My culture, my whole family, we have a lot of pride in our heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lazo is the first Latino head coach at the Power Four level and he hopes his story will inspire others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really going to inspire so many people all over the world and it\u2019s going to also inspire high school coaches that are coming up, because now they see someone who was in their shoes,\u201d he added. \u201cI might put a little bit of pressure on myself, right, but it\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for Lazo to start building his coaching staff, with his first hire being a familiar face to the program in Lynn Bria. Bria coached the Knights from 1996-99 and has spent the previous 18 seasons as the head coach at Stetson.<\/p>\n

Lazo also hired Bett Shelby and Josh Theis to fill out his coaching staff.<\/p>\n

Shebly, who served at SMU, Arizona and West Virginia, is known as a top recruiter and has developed several WNBA players, including Helena Pueyo, Esmery Martinez and Kysre Gondrezick. Theis previously worked with Lazo at the University of Tennessee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be extremely busy the next couple of days with recruiting,\u201d said Lazo. \u201cBut with the portal, you can turn your roster around and be as competitive as you possibly can.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to compete. The one thing I promise you is that we will compete at the highest level. We\u2019re going to fight, we\u2019re going to have energy, we\u2019re going to be enthusiastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please find me on X, Bluesky or Instagram @osmattmurschel. Email: mmurschel@orlandosentinel.com<\/a>. Sign up for the Sentinel\u2019s Knights Weekly<\/a> newsletter for a roundup of all our UCF coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The emotions were already building when Gabe Lazo took to the podium after being introduced as the new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[111,28,114,1335,139,141,140,76046,110,3865],"class_list":["post-227652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-college-sports","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social-sports","tag-sports","tag-ucf-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}