A talented assistant coach who has been a big part of Cal State LA women’s basketball program over the past two years, Casandra Renno returns for her third season with the Golden Eagles. Renno has been charged with spearheading the team’s recruiting efforts, overseeing team academics, facilitating community service, developing a life skills program, managing all camps and clinics, mentoring the point guards as well as scheduling, travel, and equipment.
Renno helped the Golden Eagles to a 10-17 overall record, an 8-12 mark in California Collegiate Athletic Association play and a return to the CCAA Championship Tournament. The Golden Eagles won six of their last nine games, including a 98-92 overtime win over Cal State Dominguez Hills. The 98 points were the most for a Cal State LA squad since 1998.
Renno helped the Golden Eagles post an 11-15 overall record and a 10-12 conference mark in 2014-15 despite having a short-handed roster of just 11 players that included only two seniors.
Renno came to Cal State LA from the University of La Verne, where she spent the 2013-14 season as an assistant coach.
Prior to her stint at La Verne, Renno formed the OC Elite Southwest AAU Girls Basketball Club in the fall of 2012 in Niceville, FL, serving as a youth and high school club coach. In the first year, her Under-14 team won the Gulf Coast Showdown and Tallahassee Comets Summer Xplosion Tournament. In 2012, Renno also served the Niceville High School program as assistant varsity and head junior varsity coach.
From 2010-12, Renno was an assistant varsity and head freshman coach at Robert M. Shoemaker High School in Killeen, Texas. Renno was a graduate assistant coach at Missouri Valley College from 2008-10, coaching the junior varsity team in 2009-10 and earning a masters degree in Educational Administration.
She began her coaching career as an assistant for La Sierra University in the 2005-06 season and was the girls’ junior varsity head coach and assistant varsity coach at Hanau High School in Germany in 2006-07.
A four-year standout point guard at UC Riverside, Renno, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Studies with a major in English and minor in Education. She left the Highlander program as its all-time leader in assists and 3-pointers, earning first-team All-Big West Conference honors in 2003 and 2004, All-Freshman first-team honors in 2002 and Big West honorable mention honors in 2005.
Renno attended Apple Valley High School, where she was a three-time All-Mojave River League Most Valuable Player. She also earned All-CIF Division I second-team honors as a junior and All-CIF first-team honors as a senior.
Renno has been married to her husband, Marc Renno, a U.S. Army E.O.D. Tech, for 11 years.
