"Everything happens for a reason." Those five words are what new University of Evansville women's basketball assistant coach Karyla Middlebrook says she is a very strong believer in. After a collegiate career that saw stops at Alabama and Kansas State, Middlebrook joins the Purple Aces with a wealth of experience as a student-athlete and a coach.

A highly-touted high school recruit, the Blue Springs, Mo. native was ranked 81st overall in the 2013 class. Middlebrook's college career was slated to begin at Texas Tech, but just a few weeks before she was to step on campus, a coaching staff change forced her to reconsider.

"It was so stressful for me at the time...but it turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise," said Middlebrook.

With the change, Middlebrook made the decision to follow the former Texas Tech staff to Alabama. 

"I truly loved Alabama. People told me in the recruiting process "you need to make sure you'd like the school if you were just going there as a regular student," she said. "Of course, you don't really think about that. You think "But I'm a basketball player, so I need to enjoy being a college basketball player." But the University of Alabama was awesome to me." 

Despite the change in university, Middlebrook quickly made an impact for the Crimson Tide.

"I was able to come in as a freshman and pretty much have the starting position be mine to lose. They said "If you come in and you work hard and you're the player we think you are, then there's a good chance you'll start and be the leader of this team". As a freshman in the SEC, you can't really ask for more than that, so I came in and worked hard to earn the role the coaches envisioned for me.

As a member of the Crimson Tide, Middlebrook started 70 games, playing in a total of 72 across three seasons with Alabama. In her Alabama career, Middlebrook averaged 7.6 points, 3.2 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 1.2 steals per game, including a team-high 2.7 assists in 2015-16. 

Heading into her junior season in 2016-17, Middlebrook made the decision to move closer to home and family. For the final two seasons of her collegiate career, she made the move to Manhattan, KS to join Kansas State. The decision to leave Alabama was certainly a tough one for Middlebrook.

"It was one of the hardest decisions I've had to make. I had such an incredible relationship with my teammates and I had so much love for the university as a whole and so nothing about me wanted to leave the University of Alabama," said Middlebrook. "I had a great opportunity. I was the starting point guard my whole career and the leader of that program. To think that I was going to go somewhere else and pretty much throw all that away, was a scary thought, but my family circumstances required me to be closer to home."


In her first season with the Wildcats, Middlebrook played in 33 games, making 31 starts, while averaging a career-best 9.1 points and 3.2 assists and adding 26.3 minutes per contest. The 2016-17 campaign was a banner year for the Wildcats as Kansas State amassed a 23-11 record, hosted a first round and second round pod for the 2017 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, capturing a first-round NCAA Tournament victory over Drake.

"I was put into a program that worked well with me and was patient with me and I still had a great opportunity to start and have an impact on the program," said Middlebrook. "It took a while for me to adjust, but eventually I did and I played a pretty significant role in the success that we had, making the NCAA Tournament and hosting and winning in the first round."

Heading into her senior season, Middlebrook developed an injury that brought her ability to play in to question. Battling through the uncertainty and setback after setback, Middlebrook experienced one of the toughest decisions that athletes face.

"I was trying hard to play this past year. Not too many people thought that I would come back and play," said Middlebrook. "I was glad that I was able to rehab it enough to play in at least one game during my senior year. It was one of my coolest moments when I came into my first game back to a standing ovation. Soon after that game, I realized that there was no way I was getting back to being the player that I needed to be to really help that team. That's when myself, my parents, my doctors, the coaching staff, and my trainer collectively made a decision that I shouldn't continue playing."

From the difficult time of going through injury rehabilitation and the realization that her playing career was over, Middlebrook found a new passion.

 "The coaches at K-State allowed me to move into a student assistant coaching position. It helped me springboard my career to coaching and so everything worked out."

Throughout her playing career, Middlebrook has picked up qualities along the way that have helped guide her to become the coach she is. The loyalty that the coaching staff at Alabama showed has made a lasting impact on her as she begins her coaching career.

"For one it showed me to be genuine. Don't say anything you don't mean because kids really take that stuff to heart. If you tell them that you they're going to have the opportunity to start but they have zero chance of starting and they come in and can see that, then they're not going to trust you, which hinders your relationship. (Being genuine) starts in the recruiting process and is a great foundation for the type of relationship you might have with that kid."

In her experience dealing with adversity, Middlebrook understands the demands and emotions a student-athlete can go through.

"It definitely helps with my history because I know what it takes to balance out the stress and the negative pit that you can fall into mentally when you're dealing with an injury or a situation that you didn't really expect. I know the things that I did to help me stay positive and keep a 'glass half-full' perspective . The fact that I'm recently out of college so I'm closely removed from my playing days, I'm confident that it will help me relate to our players."

Coaching is something that runs in the family for Middlebrook. Her cousin and former AAU coach, Terry Nooner, was an assistant coach at Alabama when she played for the Crimson Tide and is currently an assistant coach for Maryland. A close family friend of Middlebrook is current Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue.

"I'm very thankful for (Tyronn Lue) and everything that he's done and continues to do for me. I was able to have a couple workouts with him growing up," said Middlebrook. I've kind of always known I wanted to be a coach and to see how Tyronn has held himself throughout his career, being at Nebraska and playing in the NBA, and seeing how he's been able to transfer that over to coaching has been inspiring. Its been really cool to see somebody so close to you be able to do what you want to do and do it so well and at such a high level."

"My cousin Terry Nooner is one of the reasons I wanted to get into coaching. He actually coached me and the relationship that we have is so special and I just want to be able to impact young lives the way that he has impacted mine."

Looking ahead to the season in front of the Aces, Middlebrook is ready to make her mark on this Purple Aces team.

"We have closed the chapter on last year and we are not looking back," said Middlebrook. "This is a new year, this is a new team, and we have a lot of newcomers. We have a lot of new expectations, higher expectations, and I think our returning group has done a really nice job of buying in to that and understanding that things are going to change. We're very excited to have a lot of upside and these newcomers will definitely compliment our returners well."
 
"I'm so appreciative of Coach Ruffing for giving me the opportunity to be apart of this program and university. I look forward to learning from him and the rest of this coaching staff as we work toward taking this team and program to new heights." 
 

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