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Krystle Evans enters her first season as an assistant women's basketball coach with the Indiana State after joining the program in June 2024.
A decorated coach who has more than 15 years of experience across multiple levels of college basketball, Evans joins the Sycamores after spending the last two seasons as an assistant coach at UC Santa Barbara, where she helped lead the Gauchos to double-digit conference wins in both of her seasons on the sidelines.
UCSB went 21-12 in the 2022-23 season, the program’s most wins in over a decade, while reaching the finals of the Big West Tournament for the first time since 2017. The Gauchos were 16-15 last season. Six Gauchos earned Big West all-conference honors in her two seasons on staff, including a trio of first team selections in Alexis Whitfield, Alexis Tucker and Ila Lane. Whitfield and Alyssa Marin were 2023-24 All-Big West honorees under Evans.
Defense was a calling card for the Gauchos in Evans’ two seasons on staff, highlighted by 2022-23 Big West All-Defensive Team honoree Callie Cooper. UCSB opponents averaged fewer than 63 points per game in each of the last two seasons while shooting below 40 percent in both seasons. The Gauchos were also among the top offensive teams in the Big West, leading the conference in scoring in the 2022-23 season and finishing second in the conference in points per game in 2023-24.
Prior to UCSB, Evans spent four seasons at the Academy of Art University, including the last three as the head coach and senior woman administrator. Inheriting a team that won four games the season prior to her taking the head coach role, Evans turned the ART U program around in quick succession. The Urban Knights won 10 games in her first season at the helm, a six-win improvement from the previous season.
Evans’ crown season at ART U saw the program go 18-11 overall and 13-5 in PacWest play, finishing third in the conference standings and earning an at-large berth to the 2022 NCAA Division II Tournament. Six players earned All-PacWest honors in Evans’ tenure at the helm of the program, with the Urban Knights averaging better than 70 points per game in two of her three seasons as head coach. The team's tenacious defense saw ART U set single-season program records for scoring defense (61.0) and blocks per game (5.2) in 2021-22 as four players earned PacWest Defender of the Week, a trio earned All-PacWest Team selections, and six earned Academic All-PacWest honors. The Urban Knights also set the program’s single-game scoring record in her first season with 123 points against Dominican.
Evans spent the 2017-18 season as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Cal State Dominguez Hills, helping the Toros nearly double their win total from the previous season. Cal State Dominguez Hills won 13 games in her lone season on staff, including 11 in CCAA play, representing a six-win improvement from the 2016-17 season. CSUDH’s scoring average increased by more than four points per game with Evans on staff, while one student-athlete earned all-conference honors.
During the 2016-17 school year, Evans was an assistant coach at UC Irvine, where she was relied upon for scouting and recruitment along with the evaluation ofstudent-athletes' practice and competition performance and academic team counsel. Evans recruited a highly-touted class that helped the rebuild the Anteaters into one of the top programs in the Big West, while UC Irvine improved its overall and conference record from the previous season.
She came to the Anteaters following a year as the director of basketball operations at UC Santa Barbara, in which she was responsible for tracking academic progress, coordinating team travel along with community service efforts, and assisting all incoming student-athletes with financial aid, hosting, admissions and other orientation aspects.
From 2010-15, she was an associate head coach at L.A. Southwest College, where she helped graduate four Academic All-Conference players in four years. She also found herself at the helm of theAnimoSouth Los Angeles High School basketball program during a stellar 2014-15 season in which the Panthers reached the Division 4 Championship and Evans was named CIF Coach of the Year. Prior to her time at L.A. Southwest, she served as the associate head coach for View Park Preparatory High School, bringing in three CIF Championships in four years, as well as coaching 10 Academic All-League players.
As a player, Evans was considered one of the top point guards in the state of California, earning four straight All-League and All-City honors for Crenshaw High School and being named All-State as a senior. A standout both on the court and in the classroom, she earned a scholarship at UCLA. After graduating in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in political science with a United States government concentration and an education minor, her hard work and leadership qualities earned her aCalifornia's 30 Under 30 Award, the Wasserman Research Scholar Award, Marguerite LaMotte's Rosa Parks Leadership Award and the LAUSD Trailblazer Award, along with numerous other recognitions.
Evans is also a Past Regional Representative of the Far West Region of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc and earned her Master of Arts Degree in Kinesiology at Fresno Pacific University in 2016. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in Sports Leadership at Concordia University Chicago.
