By Matt Gade

605 Sports

RAPID CITY — For most of her life, Myah Selland had a basketball in her hands. 

Whether it was playing outside on her family’s farm outside of Letcher, in the gym at Sanborn Central/Woonsocket, or later on at Frost Arena as a Jackrabbit in Brookings.

After two years playing overseas, Selland finally put down the basketball and stepped away from the game she had loved as long as she could remember.

This past summer, Selland accepted a job as a college and career advisor with Sioux Falls Promising Futures Fund at Sioux Falls Jefferson, and almost immediately, the Cavaliers’ head girls coach, Shaunteva Pruett, made a phone call.

“As soon as I heard she was coming here, I said to myself, we gotta reach out. We gotta find out,” Pruett said. “I played with Shelby, her older sister at Augie, so I kind of had that connection already to say, ‘Hey, Shelby, I hear your sister's coming over. I need to talk to her.’ ”

Selland said she was nervous about taking on a coaching role at the same time she was starting a new job, but said she couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

A year out of playing basketball, Selland said getting to be a coach has renewed her passion for the game.

“It's been fun to kind of get back into basketball,” Selland said. “I was kind of away from it for about a year, but got back into basketball, and it's just been fun to look at the sport through a different lens. I feel like my few years out at SDSU, I kind of started thinking a little bit more about how to lead and stuff from the sideline, but now being in a coaching role, it was fun to be challenged that way, to think about the game a little bit differently.”

In high school, Selland was the South Dakota Girls Basketball Player of the Year and Miss Basketball in 2017, a 5-time Class B all-state selection for the Sanborn Central/Woonsocket Blackhawks. At South Dakota State, Selland was a two-time Summit League Player of the Year, a 4-time All-Summit League selection, a Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year Finalist and a 3-time CoSIDA Academic All-American. Selland also finished her collegiate career, second all-time in SDSU scoring with 2,167.

Sioux Falls Jefferson head coach Shaunteva Pruett runs practice on Wednesday with assistant coach Myah Selland ahead of the Class AA state tournament. (Matt Gade/605 Sports)

Since joining the Cavaliers (14-7), Pruett said Selland has had an immediate impact on the team.

“Myah is such an amazing person. She's just such a selfless person, but to get Myah for her basketball knowledge as well as somebody that's from the area, was just such a blessing for us,” Pruett said. “She sees the game in a different way than I do and my other coaching staff, and that's my biggest thing, when I hire people on my staff, as I want somebody that brings something different, so that we all can work hand in hand together. So it's been phenomenal having her on staff so far.”

Pruett was a Miss Basketball award recipient in 2010 for Sioux Falls Roosevelt before going on to play for Augusta University, where she finished as an All-American and third in scoring with more than 1,800 points.

“We have a very fun group of girls that get along really well, but they work hard, and so it's fun for me and Myah and the other staff to be able to joke and kind of have that relationship with the girls too, but then the girls know, like, when we're talking about basketball, that they're listening and really receptive of that,” Pruett said. “So, it's great to have her on and then obviously for me, I played guard in high school and college. And so she brings another realm too, with our post game and our post coaches too.”

Selland said in her first year of coaching, she’s still trying to figure out what her style of coaching is. Drawing from her own experiences with Aaron Johnston at SDSU, or her time in Europe. 

“I feel like that's something that I'm trying to kind of figure out myself, just like what I appreciated,” Selland said. “Maybe some things that I would have liked as a player, and then the things that I did like as a player, and just kind of trying to meet the girls where they're at. Obviously, it's a different level, coaching high school than college or professional, and so kind of matching, kind of meeting the girls where they're at, too, but that's still something that I'm kind of trying to figure out.”

What’s made her transition to coaching easier for Selland has been the team itself, she said.

“It's been so enjoyable. The girls are a joy to be around. The staff is fun to be around. Just kind of finding that joy of why I fell in love with basketball in the first place. The girls have reminded me of that. And so it's just been so much fun to be around.”

The Jefferson Cavaliers are currently competing in the Class AA state tournament, where they will meet Mitchell in the consolation semifinals today at 12:45 p.m.