Tulane Women’s Basketball 2009-10 Season: A Family Affair
Jul 20, 2020 | Women's Basketball
The 2009-10 Tulane women's basketball team had high hopes coming into the season but would find some challenges along the way. Though the Green Wave were plagued with injuries, they would not let that stand in the way of greatness. The women on the team were tenacious and even earned the nickname of 'The Piranhas' from the coaching staff.
"We were a very, very aggressive and strong team," then-senior Chassity Brown said. "I think Coach Stockton named the starting five 'The Piranhas.' The tallest person at one point was probably Tiffany [Aidoo] and she may be a good 5-8 or 5-9. I think our team was very strong mentally. We had a very strong mindset of winning. We were winners and by all means we won."
Aidoo agreed with the assessment of the team.
"We called ourselves 'The Piranhas' because we had a lot of injuries that season," then-junior Tiffany Aidoo said. "We were practicing with only five or six or seven. We had 12 or 13 girls on the team, but we had an incredible amount of injuries that year. We were a very ferocious group, but the compassion and love that we showed each other in a time with so much adversity was absolutely phenomenal. We had a really balanced wheel in terms of personalities, drive and tenacity amongst that team."
The team did not let the injuries quell their expectations that season.
"That season was supposed to be our good season because we had some bigs back and ready to play," Brown said. "We had good guards with good speed. We had a good combination going into the season."
Danielle Nunn had been added to the roster as a transfer from TCU and she was trying to find her place on the team.
"I transferred into Tulane from TCU, so for me it was just getting into a groove," Nunn said. "I had never played with the team before other than practice. I had shoulder surgery, so I was coming off of that. I just wanted to contribute the best way that I could and help the team and keep that cohesiveness together."
Tulane opened the season 2-2, including a loss to No. 9 LSU in overtime, but the Green Wave did not let the start throw their season off the rails. The Olive and Blue proceeded to win nine straight games and did not lose another nonconference game the rest of the season. The opening stretch also gave the team confidence going forward.
"Definitely winning always builds confidence, but I don't think we actually took anything for granted either because we were winning," Aidoo said.
As the team was heading into Conference USA play, the practices were thin. At points, the team only had enough to scrimmage three-on-three. Many players were not practicing and just showing up to the games to play in order to help the team. Brown broke her hand during a practice, which ultimately led to the players showing how much they cared for each other.
"I was in practice and coach had the bubble on top of the rim for a rebounding drill," Brown said. "Someone shot a long-distance shot and I went for the rebound. The ball got tipped and instead of the ball coming directly into my hands, it changed the position of the ball. It hit directly on the front tips of my hand and broke my hand. I didn't know it was broken. I finished out the play and I looked down and I think my ring finger was on top of my middle finger. I instantly knew something was wrong. Our trainer came over and popped it back in and the pain started hurting then. I think I went to the back and I left in the middle of practice to go see Doctor [Gregory] Stewart. He told me it was broken, and I had surgery that same day. My teammates came and picked me up from the hospital. I will never forget it. It was cold and I was freezing. I was still in basketball attire because I was in the middle of practice when all of this happened, so they were taking off their clothes and handing them to me and making sure I got in the car. They took really good care of me."
Aidoo remembered the event as well.
"When Chassity got injured, she went into surgery within the hour," Aidoo said. "Roshaunda Barnes and I went there after practice to pick her up, and we gave her the clothes off our backs because she was still wet and sweaty from practice. It was moments like that we had as team that set the tone and the nature for what our full-blown experience was for our conference tournament."
Brown was not going to let the broken hand keep her off the court.
"That was in the spring right before conference play," Brown said. "I had surgery that day and I started rehab the very next day. I asked the doctors what was the worst thing I could do to my hand if I decided to play again and they told me there was nothing worse I could do, so I went out there and played again. I have a rod, six screws and a plate in my hand to this day. After they told me that, a week later I was out there playing."
She immediately made an impact on the team in her first few games back. The Shreveport, Louisiana, native set and still holds the single-game steels record in Tulane's game at SMU that season.
"That was the second game back from breaking my hand," Brown said. "I guess I was just at the right place at the right time. They made a special thing to go over my hand. It was like a cushion with a hole. To say that I had nine steals two games after breaking my hand, I have no clue how I did it."
Tulane finished the regular season with a 23-6 overall record and a 12-4 conference mark. The Green Wave earned the Conference USA Regular Season Title and the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament.
"We were the No. 1 seed and we had a good stretch in conference, so we were well-rested," Nunn said. "Our mindset was that we were our own enemy. We knew we could do it, we just had to go out and do it. We had a bye, so we got to see who our next opponent was going to be. It happened to be UCF."
The team rallied around each other to get ready for every game, and the conference tournament was no different. The team fed off the energy of New Orleans that year and kept good times rolling into the conference tournament.
"We all were the emotional leader," Aidoo said. "I don't know if there was any one person. I think it just depended on the day. It was such a close-knit team. There was a lot of emotion and pride that I think we got from the city of New Orleans at that time. New Orleans is such a big football area -- and we loved the Saints -- and that was the same season that the Saints won the Super Bowl. We were just getting hyped as heck before every game. It just really varied on who it was that game or that day. We shared that responsibility for sure. That was probably the most phenomenal part. Just looking at the pictures evokes those emotions. The love and the charisma and the strength and tenacity. It is very evident, and it is very strong."
The Olive and Blue opened the quarterfinals of the Conference USA Tournament with UCF. Tulane was down late in the game when Brown broke free for a layup with her broken hand.
"There was a level of pressure on that team to perform well. I think we played that first game with a little bit of those jitters," Aidoo said. "Chassity [Brown] made that layup to win with her left hand that she had broken earlier in the season. That was a moment where everyone with a Tulane name across your chest, your breathing stopped, and you were nervous as hell. We had high expectations for ourselves and we played with some first game jitters, but we came out of the gates after that and got rid of it. We performed pretty well throughout the tournament."
Brown still remembers the layup as well.
"We were down with seconds left and I went to the basket and made the layup," Brown said. "Then we went down and played defense and Roshaunda [Barnes] somehow got the rebound and I released. She threw it down and I went down and made the layup and that is how we won the game. It was with my left and it was very painful, but I had to make it. We had to go to the next round."
The Green Wave moved on to beat ECU and UAB to win the tournament championship and secure a spot in the 2010 NCAA Tournament. The team accomplished their goal and brought Tulane its first tournament championship since 2003.
For Aidoo, it was more than a win to celebrate with her teammates. It was a family affair.
"Winning that game was the best feeling in the world," Aidoo said. "My brother coached me from the age of eight or nine and he is only eight years older than me. He dedicated his time when he was in college to developing me and my game, and as a person. He drove 13 hours to surprise me at that game. He also coached Olivia Grayson in AAU and he coached with Alan Frey. There was just this incredible joy that we all got out of it. As his little sister, and to have him drive up for the championship game and be able to share that moment with my brother and my parents, was an incredible joy."
Brown called it the highlight of her four seasons Uptown.
"It was probably the highlight of my four years was winning the conference tournament," Brown said. My freshman year we won the regular season and my senior year we won both, so it felt like a complete circle for me. It was the highlight for my four years."
Nunn also took pride in the team's accomplishments.
"It meant a lot to me personally," Nunn said. "After sitting out a whole entire year to fitting in with everybody, it gives you a sense of pride. We won conference and we won the conference tournament and the ultimate reward was getting our name called on Selection Sunday. It meant a lot to everybody because it was something no one on the team had ever done before. We had that feeling that we did it. We did something. We completed one of the many tasks that we had for that year."
This was the first time the Green Wave had been to the NCAA Tournament since the 2002-03 season. Tulane's 2009-10 team had made history, but they did not think they were done yet. The Olive and Blue headed to Tempe, Arizona, as a No. 12 seed to play No. 5 Georgia.
The game came down to the wire, but the Green Wave fell 64-59. Although the season ended, the impact of the coaches and the program are still felt today. Coach Lisa Stockton is the common thread among all Tulane teams since the 1994-95 season, and she has made an impact on the players of each team.
"She has been my confidant, my biggest advocate, my mentor," Aidoo said. "She has been all the things to me. I also want to give Alan Frey some credit because we had a relationship before I came to Tulane. Tulane was not a primary offer on the table. To know that I came to Tulane and built that rapport and had such an incredible career, that had a lot to do with Alan Frey and Lisa Stockton. I am just forever in debt to them. We have maintained a relationship and I am just so grateful for them checking up on me even nine years after my graduation. I was also the graduate assistant, so I have had a full-blown experience with them as an athlete and as an employee and colleague. They have just provided a wealth of knowledge in my life just by being there. I am forever grateful for them."
Nunn shared the same sentiment regarding Stockton.
"She took a chance on me," Nunn said. "She recruited me way back in the day win I was in high school and luckily she remembered the type of player that I was and turned out to be. As nurturing as she was, she was like another mother figure to me. She was always encouraging. She would level me. Anytime any of us got out of line, but me specifically, she kept me in check."
Brown felt the bond between the entire program and the family atmosphere it created.
"Tulane basketball means family to me," Brown said. "When I came to Tulane, I did not have the friends that I have now. Tiffany is one of my best friends. I still talk to her every day. I still talk to Ashley Langford. These are people who are in my life for the rest of my life. Coming to Tulane and building that relationship outside of basketball has just been a great blessing for me."
Aidoo saw the same attributes in the program.
"The first thing I think about is that is my family," Aidoo said. "That is my family, that is my community. They show up for me anytime I need them, and it doesn't have to be relevant to sport or basketball. That is what I am appreciative of. They still accept and take me in, even years removed from me playing. I think that is rare in college sports. It is also rare to have a tenure of a coach to be that long. I just want to acknowledge what Tulane women's basketball has created for any women's basketball player that has come through that program. It is an actual family. I have actually met and know every player that has come through the program after me. I think that says a lot for the community and the family that it has created for me personally."
The Tulane women's basketball 2009-10 season brought championships back Uptown and had a lasting impact on everyone involved. It was truly a family affair for the Green Wave.
"We were a very, very aggressive and strong team," then-senior Chassity Brown said. "I think Coach Stockton named the starting five 'The Piranhas.' The tallest person at one point was probably Tiffany [Aidoo] and she may be a good 5-8 or 5-9. I think our team was very strong mentally. We had a very strong mindset of winning. We were winners and by all means we won."
Aidoo agreed with the assessment of the team.
"We called ourselves 'The Piranhas' because we had a lot of injuries that season," then-junior Tiffany Aidoo said. "We were practicing with only five or six or seven. We had 12 or 13 girls on the team, but we had an incredible amount of injuries that year. We were a very ferocious group, but the compassion and love that we showed each other in a time with so much adversity was absolutely phenomenal. We had a really balanced wheel in terms of personalities, drive and tenacity amongst that team."
The team did not let the injuries quell their expectations that season.
"That season was supposed to be our good season because we had some bigs back and ready to play," Brown said. "We had good guards with good speed. We had a good combination going into the season."
Danielle Nunn had been added to the roster as a transfer from TCU and she was trying to find her place on the team.
"I transferred into Tulane from TCU, so for me it was just getting into a groove," Nunn said. "I had never played with the team before other than practice. I had shoulder surgery, so I was coming off of that. I just wanted to contribute the best way that I could and help the team and keep that cohesiveness together."
Tulane opened the season 2-2, including a loss to No. 9 LSU in overtime, but the Green Wave did not let the start throw their season off the rails. The Olive and Blue proceeded to win nine straight games and did not lose another nonconference game the rest of the season. The opening stretch also gave the team confidence going forward.
"Definitely winning always builds confidence, but I don't think we actually took anything for granted either because we were winning," Aidoo said.
As the team was heading into Conference USA play, the practices were thin. At points, the team only had enough to scrimmage three-on-three. Many players were not practicing and just showing up to the games to play in order to help the team. Brown broke her hand during a practice, which ultimately led to the players showing how much they cared for each other.
"I was in practice and coach had the bubble on top of the rim for a rebounding drill," Brown said. "Someone shot a long-distance shot and I went for the rebound. The ball got tipped and instead of the ball coming directly into my hands, it changed the position of the ball. It hit directly on the front tips of my hand and broke my hand. I didn't know it was broken. I finished out the play and I looked down and I think my ring finger was on top of my middle finger. I instantly knew something was wrong. Our trainer came over and popped it back in and the pain started hurting then. I think I went to the back and I left in the middle of practice to go see Doctor [Gregory] Stewart. He told me it was broken, and I had surgery that same day. My teammates came and picked me up from the hospital. I will never forget it. It was cold and I was freezing. I was still in basketball attire because I was in the middle of practice when all of this happened, so they were taking off their clothes and handing them to me and making sure I got in the car. They took really good care of me."
Aidoo remembered the event as well.
"When Chassity got injured, she went into surgery within the hour," Aidoo said. "Roshaunda Barnes and I went there after practice to pick her up, and we gave her the clothes off our backs because she was still wet and sweaty from practice. It was moments like that we had as team that set the tone and the nature for what our full-blown experience was for our conference tournament."
Brown was not going to let the broken hand keep her off the court.
"That was in the spring right before conference play," Brown said. "I had surgery that day and I started rehab the very next day. I asked the doctors what was the worst thing I could do to my hand if I decided to play again and they told me there was nothing worse I could do, so I went out there and played again. I have a rod, six screws and a plate in my hand to this day. After they told me that, a week later I was out there playing."
She immediately made an impact on the team in her first few games back. The Shreveport, Louisiana, native set and still holds the single-game steels record in Tulane's game at SMU that season.
"That was the second game back from breaking my hand," Brown said. "I guess I was just at the right place at the right time. They made a special thing to go over my hand. It was like a cushion with a hole. To say that I had nine steals two games after breaking my hand, I have no clue how I did it."
Tulane finished the regular season with a 23-6 overall record and a 12-4 conference mark. The Green Wave earned the Conference USA Regular Season Title and the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament.
"We were the No. 1 seed and we had a good stretch in conference, so we were well-rested," Nunn said. "Our mindset was that we were our own enemy. We knew we could do it, we just had to go out and do it. We had a bye, so we got to see who our next opponent was going to be. It happened to be UCF."
The team rallied around each other to get ready for every game, and the conference tournament was no different. The team fed off the energy of New Orleans that year and kept good times rolling into the conference tournament.
"We all were the emotional leader," Aidoo said. "I don't know if there was any one person. I think it just depended on the day. It was such a close-knit team. There was a lot of emotion and pride that I think we got from the city of New Orleans at that time. New Orleans is such a big football area -- and we loved the Saints -- and that was the same season that the Saints won the Super Bowl. We were just getting hyped as heck before every game. It just really varied on who it was that game or that day. We shared that responsibility for sure. That was probably the most phenomenal part. Just looking at the pictures evokes those emotions. The love and the charisma and the strength and tenacity. It is very evident, and it is very strong."
The Olive and Blue opened the quarterfinals of the Conference USA Tournament with UCF. Tulane was down late in the game when Brown broke free for a layup with her broken hand.
"There was a level of pressure on that team to perform well. I think we played that first game with a little bit of those jitters," Aidoo said. "Chassity [Brown] made that layup to win with her left hand that she had broken earlier in the season. That was a moment where everyone with a Tulane name across your chest, your breathing stopped, and you were nervous as hell. We had high expectations for ourselves and we played with some first game jitters, but we came out of the gates after that and got rid of it. We performed pretty well throughout the tournament."
Brown still remembers the layup as well.
"We were down with seconds left and I went to the basket and made the layup," Brown said. "Then we went down and played defense and Roshaunda [Barnes] somehow got the rebound and I released. She threw it down and I went down and made the layup and that is how we won the game. It was with my left and it was very painful, but I had to make it. We had to go to the next round."
The Green Wave moved on to beat ECU and UAB to win the tournament championship and secure a spot in the 2010 NCAA Tournament. The team accomplished their goal and brought Tulane its first tournament championship since 2003.
For Aidoo, it was more than a win to celebrate with her teammates. It was a family affair.
"Winning that game was the best feeling in the world," Aidoo said. "My brother coached me from the age of eight or nine and he is only eight years older than me. He dedicated his time when he was in college to developing me and my game, and as a person. He drove 13 hours to surprise me at that game. He also coached Olivia Grayson in AAU and he coached with Alan Frey. There was just this incredible joy that we all got out of it. As his little sister, and to have him drive up for the championship game and be able to share that moment with my brother and my parents, was an incredible joy."
Brown called it the highlight of her four seasons Uptown.
"It was probably the highlight of my four years was winning the conference tournament," Brown said. My freshman year we won the regular season and my senior year we won both, so it felt like a complete circle for me. It was the highlight for my four years."
Nunn also took pride in the team's accomplishments.
"It meant a lot to me personally," Nunn said. "After sitting out a whole entire year to fitting in with everybody, it gives you a sense of pride. We won conference and we won the conference tournament and the ultimate reward was getting our name called on Selection Sunday. It meant a lot to everybody because it was something no one on the team had ever done before. We had that feeling that we did it. We did something. We completed one of the many tasks that we had for that year."
This was the first time the Green Wave had been to the NCAA Tournament since the 2002-03 season. Tulane's 2009-10 team had made history, but they did not think they were done yet. The Olive and Blue headed to Tempe, Arizona, as a No. 12 seed to play No. 5 Georgia.
The game came down to the wire, but the Green Wave fell 64-59. Although the season ended, the impact of the coaches and the program are still felt today. Coach Lisa Stockton is the common thread among all Tulane teams since the 1994-95 season, and she has made an impact on the players of each team.
"She has been my confidant, my biggest advocate, my mentor," Aidoo said. "She has been all the things to me. I also want to give Alan Frey some credit because we had a relationship before I came to Tulane. Tulane was not a primary offer on the table. To know that I came to Tulane and built that rapport and had such an incredible career, that had a lot to do with Alan Frey and Lisa Stockton. I am just forever in debt to them. We have maintained a relationship and I am just so grateful for them checking up on me even nine years after my graduation. I was also the graduate assistant, so I have had a full-blown experience with them as an athlete and as an employee and colleague. They have just provided a wealth of knowledge in my life just by being there. I am forever grateful for them."
Nunn shared the same sentiment regarding Stockton.
"She took a chance on me," Nunn said. "She recruited me way back in the day win I was in high school and luckily she remembered the type of player that I was and turned out to be. As nurturing as she was, she was like another mother figure to me. She was always encouraging. She would level me. Anytime any of us got out of line, but me specifically, she kept me in check."
Brown felt the bond between the entire program and the family atmosphere it created.
"Tulane basketball means family to me," Brown said. "When I came to Tulane, I did not have the friends that I have now. Tiffany is one of my best friends. I still talk to her every day. I still talk to Ashley Langford. These are people who are in my life for the rest of my life. Coming to Tulane and building that relationship outside of basketball has just been a great blessing for me."
Aidoo saw the same attributes in the program.
"The first thing I think about is that is my family," Aidoo said. "That is my family, that is my community. They show up for me anytime I need them, and it doesn't have to be relevant to sport or basketball. That is what I am appreciative of. They still accept and take me in, even years removed from me playing. I think that is rare in college sports. It is also rare to have a tenure of a coach to be that long. I just want to acknowledge what Tulane women's basketball has created for any women's basketball player that has come through that program. It is an actual family. I have actually met and know every player that has come through the program after me. I think that says a lot for the community and the family that it has created for me personally."
The Tulane women's basketball 2009-10 season brought championships back Uptown and had a lasting impact on everyone involved. It was truly a family affair for the Green Wave.
Postgame: WBB vs Memphis - 2/19/26
Friday, February 20
Postgame: WBB vs ECU - 2/10/26
Wednesday, February 11
Postgame: Women's Basketball vs Charlotte - 2/4/26
Thursday, February 05
Postgame: WBB vs Temple - 1/31/26
Sunday, February 01
