The 2024-25 season does not just represent the start of a new campaign for the Stony Brook women’s basketball team, but also the beginning of a new era under head coach Joy McCorvey.
The Seawolves went through a program overhaul this past offseason, as former head coach Ashley Langford left the position after three years at the helm to return to coach at her alma mater, Tulane University. Additionally, guard Gigi Gonzalez and center Khari Clark graduated, while forward Sherese Pittman and guard Victoria Keenan followed Langford to Tulane.
McCorvey — a rookie head coach — will be tasked with rebuilding the team in the hopes of avenging last year’s team by winning the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) championship.
Although this is McCorvey’s first stop as a head coach, she is no stranger to the game. While growing up in Brewton, Ala., her parents encouraged her and her siblings to be as active as possible in extracurriculars, which included music, volleyball, track and swimming. However, it was the game of basketball that she ultimately fell in love with as she got older.
“I just loved everything about it,” McCorvey said in an interview with The Statesman. “The toughness, the speed and pace of the game, the excitement of scoring and getting stops.”
McCorvey found success while playing all four years of varsity basketball at T.R. Miller High School. She was a top-three finalist for the Birmingham News’ Miss Basketball Award, the highest-annual award given to the top-female high school player in Alabama. She was also chosen for the Alabama/Mississippi all-star game.
But it was McCorvey’s time playing Amateur Athletic Association (AAU) basketball during her high school playing career that allowed her to gain exposure. When playing for the Alabama Roadrunners’ AAU team, she traveled across the country to play in the biggest tournaments, ultimately leading to her receiving interest from collegiate teams.
“It exposed me to all different parts of the country,” McCorvey said. “It really changed my perspective on going away for college.”
For McCorvey, the recruitment process was about finding the best school for both athletics and academics.
“It’s about relationships and your comfortability and making sure that the school that you choose checks off the boxes for whatever you are looking for,” McCorvey said. “No different now being in this role, relationships are really important to me. Academically, my major was education, so making sure that particular school had a great education program was key.”
McCorvey chose St. John’s University to continue her basketball and education career, earning a bachelor’s degree in childhood education. As a player, McCorvey embodied a blue-collar mentality, something she learned while growing up in Alabama. She was undersized for the small-forward position during her time at St. John’s, which put a chip on her shoulder to take on whatever role the team required her to.
McCorvey started 26 of the Red Storm’s 28 games during her freshman year and was the team’s leading rebounder as a sophomore with 5.5 per game. She also led the team in steals (47) during her junior season and blocks (27) as a senior. During McCorvey’s time at St. John’s, the team made three different postseason runs.
McCorvey was a four-year captain with the Red Storm, leading the team to a 25-7 record and the second round of the 2010 NCAA Tournament in her senior year.
Despite a plethora of personal and team accolades, the transition from high school to college was not as easy for McCorvey as it now looks.
“It’s a big transition not only on the court, but off the court as well,” McCorvey said. “It’s tough handling both the rigorous academic workload and the new environment.”
McCorvey ultimately made the successful transition thanks to the support of her teammates, friends, coaches and professors who helped her get acclimated to being a college student and athlete. The accolades were not what McCorvey took away from the experience, but rather the experiences she had with her teammates.
“My coach was having her third child,” McCorvey said. “She was living in New Jersey and St. John’s in Queens and as soon as her daughter was born and she made it home from the hospital, a couple of teammates got in my car and we drove to New Jersey. I was the first person beside her family to hold her daughter.”
It is the camaraderie aspect of the game that McCorvey instilled in her team once she got hired to lead Stony Brook, with one of the end goals being to make lifelong friends and memories. As a former college player herself who is now in a head-coaching position, McCorvey can relate to what her players are currently going through between their studies, practices and games.
“I always want to use those moments to teach our players and educate our players and really hone in on the life lessons that this game allows us to learn,” McCorvey said. “Their feelings are valid and real.”
After her college eligibility was up, McCorvey eventually joined Kim Barnes Arico — her collegiate head coach — at St. John’s as an assistant coach on her staff. Like she did during her playing career, it was Arico that believed in McCorvey, giving her an opportunity to get into coaching.
McCorvey initially wanted to be a high school teacher and coach high school basketball, but becoming a coach at the collegiate level blended both McCorvey’s passions of basketball and education.
“In coaching, it’s educating our players every single day,” McCorvey said. “It’s teaching life lessons. We’re not in the classroom, but every day, we’re learning new things.
McCorvey then followed Arico to the University of Michigan after Arico accepted the head-coaching job at the program. Similar to her other experiences, it was another transition and learning period that McCorvey had to go through to continue her journey.
“Being at Michigan, it really shaped who I am as a head coach,” McCorvey said. “I was so fortunate enough to work alongside really good assistant coaches who really helped me grow.”
McCorvey was on Arico’s staff from 2012 to 2018, as she worked in player development and recruiting until she accepted a role as an assistant coach in 2019 for Florida State University’s (FSU) women’s basketball team. She was promoted to associate head coach at FSU in 2020.
“I have been blessed to be at three really great places, but not because of the name, because of the people,” McCorvey said. “Starting with the head coaches and how they allowed me to grow as an assistant coach to really value my aspiration and dreams to be where I am now.”
From 2021 to 2023, McCorvey went on to become an assistant coach for the Tennessee women’s basketball team, helping lead the Volunteers to three consecutive NCAA Tournaments.
The responsibilities of player development and recruiting in all of McCorvey’s stops has prepared her for this moment, as those two familiar aspects make up a big part of her coaching style.
“This is what the timing was for God,” McCorvey said. “I put my faith in that and I pray about that. I move accordingly to my faith and I never questioned that. If it was supposed to happen earlier, then God would have seen it as such, but it didn’t happen early and allowed me to be with some amazing people.”
For McCorvey, landing the Stony Brook women’s basketball team head coaching gig was a full circle moment for her entire career, as this — her first coaching opportunity — happens to be in New York, where her collegiate playing career took off. Once Langford moved on from the program, Director of Athletics Shawn Heilbron immediately began the search for Stony Brook’s 11th head coach in program history, leading him to McCorvey.
“We had really good conversations,” McCorvey said. “I really heard [Heilbron]’s vision for the program and he heard my vision as a head coach. Our values are very similar, not only for women’s basketball, but just for Stony Brook Athletics as a whole.”
When Heilbron called McCorvey to notify her that she was the woman for the Seawolves’ vacant head-coaching position, she was sitting on her back patio with her dog. For McCorvey, it was a surreal moment; 13 years as an assistant coach in three different places finally led her to her dream.
With many of Stony Brook‘s top players graduating or transferring elsewhere, it was up to McCorvey to refill the empty cupboards to get the team ready for the season and title contention. She brought in a batch of new transfers to go along with returning veterans like guard Zaida Gonzalez and forward Shamarla King.
“Our players were excited,” McCorvey said. “They have continued to grow since we first started in April. They have grown in their confidence, they are embracing their roles for this season and there’s still a lot of new to our team.”
Last year, the team fell short of winning the CAA Championship after being the top seed. For McCorvey, the expectation for herself and her group is to grow one day at a time.
“We are not looking at last year’s team,” McCorvey said. “Last year’s team is just that, last year’s team. That’s now in the past for us. We are focused on our team, stacking good days, being resilient and taking advantage of this window of opportunity that they have for this year.”
Despite the uncertainty of what the team will look like when the season begins, McCorvey wants to see the blue-collar mentality in her team every time they step on the court.
“We want to pride ourselves on the defensive end first and foremost,” McCorvey said. “We want to be gritty. We want to generate tips and deflections and really disrupt on the defensive end. And in return, that makes it fun on the offensive end and allows us to play a high-tempo style and push the pace in transition.”
When all the days are stacked and the season is over, McCorvey wants to see the growth and development of the team. She wants all her players to put their best foot forward in an attempt to win the CAA title.
“Obviously we want to win games,” McCorvey said. “I want to win games, no doubt about it. We want to win a championship. That’s what we have our eyes set on, but that’s not going to determine the success of this team for me. It’s us becoming one and really having action to all the things we say every day of who we want to be.”
The McCorvey era will kick off on Nov. 4, when the Seawolves will take on the Columbia Lions on the road for their 2024-25 season opener.
