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The Basketball Podcast: EP396 with Alicia Komaki on the 5 Ships before a Championship
In this week’s basketball coaching conversation, Sierra Canyon head coach Alicia Komaki joins the Basketball Podcast to share insights on their five ships before a championship.
Alicia Komaki is set to enter her fourteenth season as Head Coach of the Sierra Canyon Girls Basketball team in 2025–2026, where she has established one of the nation’s most dominant high school programs. Her tenure is highlighted by leading her teams to five California State Championships and securing an ESPN National Championship in 2023, finishing the season ranked number one in the country. Coach Komaki boasts an overall career record of over 350 wins at Sierra Canyon, maintaining an exceptional win percentage above 85% over 13 years.
Beyond the banners, Coach Komaki is renowned for developing elite, collegiate-ready talent. Her program has served as a pipeline for top NCAA programs, featuring standout athletes like Juju Watkins (USC), Kennedy Burke (WNBA ), and Vanessa De Jesus (Duke). This proven ability to consistently prepare players for the highest level of competition underscores the effectiveness of her coaching system and development focus.
Her success has garnered national recognition and numerous accolades. In 2022, Komaki was named the WBCA Pat Summit National Coach of the Year, and she was a finalist for the Naismith National Coach of the Year in 2023. Other honors include the LA Times Coach of the Year and Cal-Hi Sports Coach of the Year in 2019. Her standing among elite coaches is further recognized by USA Basketball, where she made her bench coaching debut as an assistant at the 2025 Nike Hoop Summit and previously served as a court coach for the USA Basketball Women’s U16 National Team trials in 2017. With a personal resume reflecting 7 State Championship rings and 2 National Championships, Komaki is a proven winner and a powerhouse in high school basketball development.
Alicia Komaki Quotes:
“The one consistency is that we have good players and kids that buy in, great support from my administration, and great parents and great families. Those are the kind of people that I want to play for me and be a part of my program. You can do a lot when you have good people.”
“My philosophy behind coaching is that better people make better basketball players. And so, I’m constantly trying to be as much of a role model as I can and try to do things the right way . . and mold them and guide them and sculpt them into good humans. I think that is the number one goal . . Confidence and humility are words that we try to put into these kids every day.”
“I think it’s important, obviously, that parents receive communication, especially when you’re new to a program . . it was important to let them know who I am and why you should trust me coaching your kid and trust my coaching staff and . . just trying to give them knowledge and information and then answer any questions for them. But a big thing for me is I coach at this age for a reason. I think it’s incredibly impactful, the ages of 13 to 19, and I want to work with these kids.”
“I think it’s really important to know who came before you. We’re talking this year a lot about ownership and membership. And so, we talked about you have a membership at Sierra Canyon. There’s some form of a buy-in here. You don’t just get to be on the team, you’re part of the history here. . . What has been the success of the program? What have been the challenges of this program?”
“These kids are going to know who Juju is and they’re going to know that she played at Sierra Canyon, but also they’re going to know the challenges that came with her years here and that she didn’t win everything right. And they’ll know how that story got built and how her legacy got cemented because of those challenges as well as the successes.”
“Let’s make sure everybody fully understands what it takes, culture-wise, to be a part of Sierra Canyon girls basketball and that you also get to craft part of that as well. It’s not just this is what gets told to you. You guys decide a lot of those things yourselves as well.”
“Develop and grow and improve. That’s something I want to get from my players. You should be different when you leave from when you first got here. It’s a big part of why I love coaching this age group is they’re very moldable and impressionable . . and if I could have a great positive impact on their life in some of the most formative years, I think that’s a special role for me to play.”
“Know who you are but also be very willing to grow. Not change but grow. For me personally, it’s just been constant seeking knowledge. It’s a big staple of who I am as a person. I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to get better, and I really want to be there for my players in the same way now as I was 20 years ago. And they are different people. So I can’t do things the same way that I did it 20 years ago. And I can’t just sit in the way the game is now as it was 20 years ago.”
“If you’re not trying to become a better coach from your players, something’s off. You can’t just be a better coach because you listen to other coaches or because you listen to podcasts and you read books. You have to learn from your players. They’re the ones who are ultimately going to make you a better coach. And so,I take notes year after year, lessons learned . . small things, big things.”
“The idea of clarity before accountability is that we can’t hold these kids accountable to things that aren’t clear for them. And I had an expectation that they know every drill that they do . . How does a brand-new kid to our program know the drill unless they come in? I show them on a whiteboard . . and I have to record every practice and clip and then have a drill database. That’s part of my practice planner.”
“They all have all the drills in alphabetical order and they get a practice plan ahead of time and they can go hop on there and see, ‘This looks new. I’ve never seen this on the practice plan.’ Yet again, for a new kid to the program, everything’s going to be new. But that way, it gives them confidence coming into practice.”
“It’s just things to keep them focused. So, ‘let’s start doing this, let’s stop doing this, let’s keep doing this.’ And we’re going to start doing that individually with them as well. We already have it planned out and then there can be film and different things that go with that so they can kind of see they’re on the right path.”
“Sometimes people are like, ‘This is what we do and we will do it. And if we lose because of it, that’s who we are.’ We won’t do that. We will adjust. We’re always going to give ourselves the best chance to win a basketball game based on our preparation and scout.”
“A big reason personally why I don’t play as much zone as some other teams might play zone, because I’m trying to prepare them for the next level. Some people, of course, that’s their main staple of defense and that’s all they know. But we were trying to make these players as well rounded as possible to go to the next level. And give them as much verbiage that might be used at all the different programs and show them different looks. It’s also good for us offensively.”
“The daily goals of just impacting as many lives as humanly possible in the time that I have coaching and the time that I have on this earth. That’s the most important thing for me.”
Alicia Komaki Breakdown:
Alicia Komaki Selected Links from the Podcast:
Alicia Komaki
Kennedy Burke
Juju Watkins
A’ja Wilson
Kevin Eastman
Mike Neighbors
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