Rachid Meziane is standing inside the Mohegan Tribal Community and Government Center, reflecting on how he arrived here, in Uncasville, as the Connecticut Sun’s new head coach. As he speaks in a thick-French accent, his words come as a surprise, given where his career — which began in France — has gone so far.
A native of Clermont-Ferrand, France, Meziane’s success on the international stage includes leading the French women’s basketball club, the Villeneuve d’Ascq to a Ligue Féminine de Basketball (LFB) championship in during the 2023-24 season. Prior to that, he served as an assistant coach on the French women’s national team, which won a bronze medal in the 2020 Olympics. Meziane’s coaching career has also taken him to Belgium, where he took over as head coach of the national team in 2022 and led them to a gold medal in the FIBA European women’s championship.
Despite having coached plenty of WNBA talent in past years — including Los Angeles Spark Julie Vanloo in Belgium and current Sun guard Bria Hartley in France — and assembling a track record of leading teams to titles, it came as a surprise to many when Meziane, who had no prior experience in the league, was named the new head coach of the Sun in December after Stephanie White, who led the Sun to the playoffs in 2024, parted ways with the team and then was hired by Indiana. There were plenty of question marks, too, about Meziane’s coaching style and how exactly he could lead the Sun into a rebuild after the once-storied franchise lost 12 of the 15 players who saw action on the floor this past offseason, including its entire starting lineup.
Your business can reach over 3 million women’s sports fans every single month!
Here at The Next and The IX, our audience is a collection of the smartest, most passionate women’s sports fans in the world. If your business has a mission to serve these fans, reach out to our team at editors@thenexthoops.com to discuss ways to work together.
“My philosophy is built on three key pillars,” Meziane said in the Sun’s introductory press conference. “Hard work, because I don’t believe in relying on talent; discipline, discipline in understanding what we are doing, how we carry ourselves, and how we treat each other, and communication, how we talk to each other and learn from others.”
Equipped with a roster that includes all-time great Tina Charles, veteran leadership in Marina Mabrey (who is currently out with a knee injury) and Hartley, the Sun also have young talent in dynamic scorers like Jacy Sheldon, Lindsay Allen and rookie Saniya Rivers, as well as presence in the paint with Olivia Nelson-Ododa and rookie Aneesah Morrow. Meziane has been tasked with bringing this squad together for the first time.
It hasn’t been easy. The Sun are currently 3-18 heading into the All-Star break, which marks their worst start in franchise history. What Meziane is learning, in real-time, is what it takes to not only coach his team, but also in the WNBA generally, with the level of talent and physicality that this league contains.
“It takes a lot of time and energy,” Meziane told The Next when asked what he’s learned about himself as a coach at this point in the season. “You have to question yourself every time, because the game is changing, maybe every month now. The talent we have in W is the biggest thing I have to manage, because we don’t have this in Europe. We have more team ball here, we have more talent, and physicality, but I am sure that if we can mix this team’s style, with the talent [and] with the physicality, it will take a lot of time, but if you can find the good compromise… we can be a successful team.”
Meziane’s coaching principles
To become that successful team, the Sun need a vision. Drawing on inspiration from legends like San Antonio Spurs longtime head coach Gregg Popovich, Meziane brings a team-first mentality and approach to coaching. Like him, Pop started out as an assistant coach before taking over at the helm in San Antonio in 1997, and in his first season as head coach, he completely revitalized the franchise — he took a Spurs team that had missed the playoffs the previous year and led them to the West Conference Finals. The following year, San Antonio won an NBA championship, its first ever in franchise history.
Meziane says he also looks up to renowned Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, another famously successful manager that emphasizes a strong work ethic. “My coaching style is about values of respect, values of hard work and work ethic and trying to involve everybody in my system,” Meziane said. “Respect, play hard, play smart. I would like to teach my players and my team to believe in a team-first mentality, a lot of ball movement. I think this system can match with our strengths and our personalities.”
When Meziane first scored the head coach position in Connecticut, his goals for himself were to learn the WNBA system and “keep learning from every opportunity and every game.” With each loss, he takes away a lesson on what the team needs to work on. After a 12-point loss to the Chicago Sky on June 15, he pinpointed that what the Sun struggled with the most was a lack of trust, poor ball movement and not enough scoring opportunities for each other. “At the end, this is the result when we don’t play with our principles,” he told the media after the game.
Tune in to Locked On Women’s Basketball
Here at The Next, in addition to the 24/7/365 written content our staff provides, we also host the daily Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast. Join us Monday through Saturday each week as we discuss all things WNBA, collegiate basketball, basketball history and much more. Listen wherever you find podcasts or watch on YouTube.
When the Sun played against the Fever a week later, what he saw was a shift in the team’s spirit after a heated scuffle ensued in the fourth quarter between multiple players on both teams, including Sheldon, Charles, Mabrey and Fever’s Sophie Cunningham. The Sun ended up losing, 88-71, but for Meziane, it was a moment of trust for his players. “I will never be happy to lose a game, but I feel that today, we found the character. This is the first time I saw my players helping each other,” he told the media after the game.
The following night, the Sun held their own against the Phoenix Mercury and lost by just eight points, their smallest scoring deficit since May 23. When they narrowly lost by just two-points to the Dallas Wings on June 20, Meziane identified that consistency was now going to be the difference-maker for this team.
“I think that the consistency, [and] how we handle certain situations during the game, I think that’s [been] our problem since the beginning,” he said after the game. “We were capable of fighting against Minnesota, against Phoenix, and we had good flashes on how good we can play. I said to my team, we are very resilient, because it’s not easy, what we are going through. So, keep fighting and working hard. Increase our chance to win the next game. This season is long…We have a lot of games in front of us to try to improve, [and] I do think that my players are in the same process.”
Buying in
After suffering 10 losses in a row, the Sun underwent a complete reset in practice by switching up their approach. On the court, Meziane and his coaching staff got on his players about the “little things in our offense,” as Allen explained to The Next right before the Sun faced the Las Vegas Aces. These little things were, more specifically, ball screen angles, running plays, social awareness and setting screens for each other. Once practice was over, the entire team participated in a sacred tribal tradition, led by the City Council of Elders, to bring in new energy and positivity.
After suffering a 20-point loss to the Aces on July 6, the Sun bounced back against Seattle and posted their first win of the season since June. “What will make the difference is not just natural talent,” Meziane told the media after the Sun’s loss to the Aces. “It’s not the experience here, because we know that we don’t have as much experience as the other side. But it doesn’t mean that we cannot compete and cannot win this game. For me, the difference is intensity, the effort, the real effort, the energy. Technique is not magic. It’s about doing the right things, over and over.”
It’s that sentiment that his players, including Hartley, who suited up for Meziane in France, have bought into. “I know our record isn’t where we want to be, and at this point, we got to keep staying together, keep building day by day,” Hartley told The Next. “The only way to get out of a hole like this is just to keep coming together and keep going to work.”
As a result of this buy-in, the cohesiveness viewers have seen from the Sun as of late — including most recently against the Los Angeles Sparks on July 14, in which they controlled the lead multiple times throughout the game despite ultimately losing — is a culmination of just how much the Sun trust Meziane’s vision. “It’s crazy to see him come from [France], because he was probably like the fourth assistant when I played with them, and he’s really grown as a coach and just worked his way up,” Hartley added. “Just to see his growth, and when I saw that he got the head coaching job, I was just really happy for him.”
Order ‘Rare Gems’ and save 30%
Howard Megdal, founder and editor of The Next and The IX, released his latest book on May 7, 2024. This deeply reported story follows four connected generations of women’s basketball pioneers, from Elvera “Peps” Neuman to Cheryl Reeve and from Lindsay Whalen to Sylvia Fowles and Paige Bueckers.
If you enjoy his coverage of women’s basketball every Wednesday at The IX, you will love “Rare Gems: How Four Generations of Women Paved the Way for the WNBA.” Click the link below to order and enter MEGDAL30 at checkout.
Many players, including both Hartley and Morrow, describe Meziane as very “chill,” and a “laid back,” type of coach. As the season has continued, they’ve been able to get to know and understand him better, especially given the slight language barrier, as Meziane, who speaks English, does so with a heavy French accent.
“I’ll honestly say for him and me, I am very quiet,” Morrow told us. “I feel like Rashid is a lot more vocal than he was when he first got here, for sure. I’ve been able to understand him a lot more as well spending a lot of time together. I would say that his approach is different. He wants to win, and we all want to win, and there’s a different approach, a different mindset that we need to go into these games for.”
“He tries to be a little funny, and he cracks jokes and stuff,” Morrow added. “We be catching on [and] laughing.”
“He’s hard on us, which I appreciate and I like, but he also knows the game,” Sheldon said. “He knows ball really well, and I think just learning from him, that’s a continuous thing. As he understands English better, we’re starting to understand him better, so our relationships have definitely grown, but I’m really happy he’s here.”
The team’s new shift in perspective comes at the perfect time, as the Sun are set to face off against the Indiana Fever on July 15 at TD Garden. The highly anticipated matchup arrives at the perfect time for Connecticut, whose future remains somewhat unclear right now given the recent reports that the Mohegan Tribe is looking at potential investors to purchase the franchise. The City of Boston recently endorsed the idea of the team relocating there, as well.
Regardless of what happens next — after the All-Star break, at the end of the season — this year’s current Sun squad is focused what’s in front of them. And while their new head coach didn’t envision a career coaching in the WNBA, he’s here now, and he’s learning that good things take time.
“I used to win a lot,” Meziane said. “I had a lot of success in Europe, but [I’m learning] to just be patient. And to do my job with some resilience and keep working hard, maybe [even] harder to make my team better.”
The Next, a 24/7/365 women’s basketball newsroom
The Next: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX. 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.
