When Tynesha Lewis decided to make the jump to coaching Division I women’s college basketball last April, leaving an Elizabeth City State program she had led to a CIAA championship, there were a few important factors as to why she picked UNC-Asheville.
She watched all the team's film from the previous season, analyzing all the players on the roster she was inheriting and breaking down all the stats. She liked what she saw. And Lewis also felt like she would have the support of her athletic director, Janet Cone — whom Lewis calls a "rockstar" — to turn the Bulldogs into a winner.
"I feel like I can win," Lewis said. "I wouldn’t have took it if I didn’t think I could win right now."
And Lewis, who grew up Edgecombe County, played for the great Kay Yow at N.C. State, and spent three seasons at Elizabeth City State, thought that she was heading toward a part of North Carolina that had better weather. At the very least, she assumed she wouldn't have to deal with hurricanes when she started coaching the Bulldogs near the junction of the Swannanoa and French Broad rivers.
"I definitely thought I was safe in the mountains," Lewis said. "You know, I'm getting away from the storms on the east side of the state. So, I thought I was good to go."
That line of thinking quickly dissipated for Lewis last month when Helene brought its wrath and destruction to western North Carolina, destroying buildings, breaking dams, bringing unforgiving floods, washing away towns, and changing lives forever.
During that last weekend in September, Lewis had to grapple with things that no college basketball coach ever expects to deal with. It reminded her of her first season at Elizabeth City State, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020. The priorities shifted from x's-and-o's and whether or not to play a man or zone defense to worrying about the well-being for the humans around you, especially the ones who look up to you for guidance, on and off the court.
"The first thing was to find the kids. That was the No. 1 goal. I take it very seriously when a parent says, 'This is my kid.' So, finding them, and then finding a way out of Asheville," Lewis said. "I've never experienced anything like that. Communications systems down, you don't know what highways work."
Once all of Lewis' 15 players, assistant coaches and staff were accounted for, she worked with Cone to come up with a plan forward.
Now, less than three weeks before the college basketball season begins, Lewis and the Bulldogs have turned into a nomadic team. They've been calling a Charlotte hotel home and practicing wherever they can find an available floor and two hoops.
"We're leaning on each other and the coaches as well," said UNC-Asheville senior forward Nycerra Minnis. "We just want to cultivate good vibes as much as we can. We're trying to look at the glass half-full, trying to use this time as something to bring us together. I feel like we all have each other's backs on the court. We're going to figure it out. We're not just going to lay down or quit."
Simply put, through all of this real adversity, the Bulldogs have remained resilient as they prepare for the season.
"The team is doing pretty well. I'm super proud of how they're responding to being displaced. We've been looking at each other all day for at least two weeks now," Lewis said. "There's just a lot of uncertainty in Asheville. That's their home, and they saw a lot of devastation when we were leaving out. It's bad. You've got pictures, but that ain't close to what it is."
Since taking up residency in Charlotte, the Bulldogs have been practicing in a variety of venues. Each day, they leave their hotel on a 15-passenger bus and drive to whatever gym is available. So far, they've sharpened their basketball skills at facilities operated by UNC-Charlotte, Queens University, West Charlotte High School, Johnson C. Smith University, and the Charlotte Hornets. Lewis said the team is practicing at a different place "pretty much" every day.
"The Charlotte area has been absolutely great," said Lewis. "We've been practicing anywhere that would have us and they've been absolutely great. And the players have adjusted. And I've been telling them, 'This is so much like life.' You have this great plan, you can put together all the days you have practice and what exactly you're doing in that practice, and then life happens. The goal doesn't change. We just put in another strategy to get there."
Lewis remains hopeful that the Bulldogs can play and practice in Asheville at some point this season. She says Kimmel Arena — the 3,200-seat on-campus basketball venue that opened in 2011 — didn't suffer any significant damage, but the hurdle right now is getting clean, running water flowing to that building and everywhere else on campus. As a result, all of UNC-Asheville's home games in November have been moved to the opponent's home floor.
So, instead of hosting Mercer on Nov. 4, the Bulldogs will travel to Macon, Georgia for their season-opener – Lewis' first game as a Division I head coach.
For Minnis, the silver-lining through all of this — fleeing her college campus to live out of a hotel to prepare for her final season of college basketball — is that she doesn't have to worry about schoolwork at the moment. Classes at UNC-Asheville won't resume until Oct. 28.
"So, thank God for that. I'm not going to lie," Minnis said with a laugh. "That's one thing off the plate. But I will say the lack of routine at times, the structure, it's not the same. That's been an adjustment. … But this is nobody's fault. It's just life. However we're feeling, it's OK to feel like that. This is an unprecedented event. I just want to be able to be a shoulder for anyone, you know? Especially the younger people on the team."
On the court, what Lewis brings to UNC-Asheville is a championship pedigree. At N.C. State, she was a three-time All-ACC selection while playing point guard for Yow and had a key role as a freshman on the Wolfpack squad that went to the Final Four in 1998. After six seasons in the WNBA, she embarked on a coaching career, which saw her lead Elizabeth City State to three appearances in the CIAA title game, the program's first appearance in the Division II NCAA Tournament, and win the 2023 Clarence Gaines Division II Coach of the Year award.
And now, she hopes to bring that same standard to Asheville, which hasn't been to March Madness since 2017. She aims to do that with a defense-first mindset, an up-tempo offense, a family-oriented team culture, and players that are mentally tough, poised and energetic. Lewis brought in six transfers in the offseason to bolster the roster.
"I want us to look the same way whether we're up by 10 or down by 10. "We're just going to keep stacking days, making the right plays," Lewis said. "I want us to guard full court. As soon as they get off the bus, I want to be guarding them."
But winning this year — whether it's one game or 30 — could mean so much more.
Not just for the team and the university, but for Asheville and greater western North Carolina as a whole.
"With the hurricane and everything that's happened, we're using that as more fuel. You know, we're fighting. This is bigger than basketball," Minnis says. "We're representing Asheville on our chest, and Asheville isn't in the best place right now, but we're going to show that good things can still come out of Asheville."
