Guzzardo To ‘Surround Myself With Winners’

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By John Frierson
Staff Writer

Ayla Guzzardo's college basketball journey began 20 years ago, as a freshman point guard at Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa, Ala. On Tuesday morning at Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall, she was formally introduced as the new head coach at Georgia.

While Athens and Tuscaloosa are only 275 miles apart by car, Guzzardo has traveled a long and winding road to get here. There were stops at several mid-major programs along the way, from Akron as a player to coaching at Southeastern Louisiana and McNeese State. Now, she's at a program with a rich tradition and all of the resources she could want.

"I'll tell you, coming from the mid-major level, we've gotten our hands dirty a lot, and we're not afraid to continue to do that," she said. "We know how to work hard. I'm going to surround myself with winners, from my staff to the players. We know how to win, and we're going to do that consistently."

Guzzardo said Tuesday that "it was always a goal" to coach at a place like Georgia, which has been to five Final Fours, 11 Eight Eights, 20 Sweet 16s, and made the NCAA tournament 37 times, tied for third most among all Division I programs.

"I didn't imagine it until I met Josh," Guzzardo said while standing next to J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics Josh Brooks. "This place is a special place. It was always a goal of mine, but once I got to Athens, and I realized how important and how special it was, I knew it was the right place for me."

Guzzardo and Brooks are from the same hometown, Hammond, La., but they didn't know one another. Hammond also produced LSU women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey and Ole Miss football coach Pete Golding. "Josh is a very important person back where I'm from," Guzzardo said.

"Hammond's taking over the SEC," Brooks joked.

"We have some of the same values in our life. We have some of the same core expectations; for us, we have the same alignment, and I think that's important," Guzzardo said.

It was at the 2023 NCAA tournament that Brooks first saw Guzzardo coaching. Georgia and Southeastern Louisiana were both playing first-round games at Iowa, and Brooks said he was immediately impressed by what he saw when Guzzardo's team faced Iowa in the first round.

"I remember how well her team competed when we were both at the NCAA tournament in Iowa a few years ago," he said, adding, "Since that day I first saw her, what she accomplished speaks for itself."

Guzzardo was twice voted the Southland Conference Coach of the Year during her eight seasons at Southeastern Louisiana, and she won the award again last month after her first season at McNeese State. She engineered the third-best turnaround in NCAA history, taking over a McNeese State program that went 10-21 the year before she arrived and leading it to a 29-6 record that included a 21-game win streak.

As a player, Guzzardo was an effective, determined point guard who looked to lead and get everyone involved. She said she wants her teams to have the same characteristics.

"You watch us play our games, you'll see the exact same way," she said. "My coaching style translates to me as a player. I was loud, I was energetic, passionate, intense, feisty, and I try to mimic that with our players."

After her two years at Shelton State, Guzzardo transferred to Akron, where she started 22 games as a junior and all 32 as a senior. When her playing career was done, she immediately got into coaching as an assistant at Akron. She then went back home to Hammond to coach at her old high school, St. Thomas Aquinas. After that, she was an assistant coach at Southeastern Louisiana for one season before being promoted to head coach. Following eight seasons at Southeastern Louisiana, she made the move to McNeese State, where she led the Cowgirls to the most wins in program history and coached the Southland Defensive Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year.

Regarding the type of play that Guzzardo will bring to the Lady Bulldogs, she said "you're going to see an exciting style of basketball." One that will be heavily focused on the defensive end. At McNeese State this season, she had two of the five players on the Southland All-Defensive Team.

Among those in attendance at Tuesday's introductory event was former women's coach Andy Landers, the Hall of Famer who built the Lady Bulldogs into one of the top programs in the country during his time at Georgia from 1979-2015. Guzzardo is the third coach to follow Landers, after Joni Taylor and Katie Abrahamson-Henderson, and she said she's looked up to him for a long time.

"Watching him when I was growing up, I had so much respect for what he's built here," she said. Guzzardo later said that she didn't want to outshine one of the greatest coaches in women's basketball history, but "I want to make sure I catch up and get pretty damn close."

Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files.

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