KLOPPENBURG-PRUITT LIVING HER DREAM AT PLNU

(SAN DIEGO) Carlotta Kloppenburg-Pruitt is living her dream.

After playing two seasons for PLNU Women’s Basketball and graduating from Point Loma in 2014, Kloppenburg-Pruitt is back on The Point, this time as head coach of her alma mater.

Her head coaching tenure is off to a dream start after Point Loma’s 83-43 victory at San Francisco State in her PLNU coaching debut on Monday, the program’s largest season-opening win since 1991.

“It's a dream, I never actually thought it would happen,” Kloppenburg-Pruitt said of coaching her former team. “I knew I wanted to coach when I graduated, and this was absolutely a dream job, but I never thought it could come true. You’re on a different path when you graduate at 22, so it’s insane that I’m back.”

Kloppenburg-Pruitt wanted to play at Point Loma straight out of high school, but said she wasn’t good enough.

But after two years developing as a player at Ventura College, she earned a spot on the Sea Lions’ roster and excelled on the court for Point Loma in 2012-13 and 2013-14.

This time around as a coach, there’s no question if she’s good enough.

Kloppenburg-Pruitt spent the last five seasons as Head Coach at Southern Oregon, where she accumulated a 134-31 (.812) overall record while winning two Cascade Collegiate Conference regular season championships and two CCC tournament titles.

The three-time CCC Coach of the Year led SOU to the NAIA National Tournament each year, including in 2024-25 when she was named NAIA Coach of the Year by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association after coaching the Raiders to the national quarterfinals following a 34-0 start to the season.

Her impressive coaching resume also includes stops at NCAA Division I schools Winthrop, Arizona State and San Jose State, places where she gained valuable experience in preparation for her first head coaching job.

“Once I got the SOU job, I’d already done a little bit of everything,” Kloppenburg-Pruitt said. “I’d been a graduate assistant, I'd scheduled, done laundry, organized all the equipment and all the planning for our trips.

“With a job like SOU, you have to do all of that. I felt like I was prepared in that sense and I knew I had really good people around me to just help me along the way.”

Two of those people were her father Gary, who has coached in the WNBA since 2000, and her grandfather Bob, who spent 17 years coaching in the NBA.

During her summers as a student-athlete at PLNU, Kloppenburg-Pruitt interned for her father when he was the Head Coach of the WNBA’s Tulsa Shock, opening her eyes to a future career in coaching.

“Those were the summers I saw how stressful coaching was, but I also just loved the team aspect and I loved the preparation,” Kloppenburg-Pruitt said. “I got to help with a lot of video stuff, same as when my dad was with the Indiana Fever. I just really enjoyed that side and that's when I knew that's what I wanted to do.”

The impact Kloppenburg-Pruitt’s father, who is on her staff at PLNU, and grandfather have had on her coaching career can be seen in her team’s style of play.

“Basketball wise, our whole philosophy is derived from them,” Kloppenburg-Pruitt said of her father’s and grandfather’s influence. “It’s what is ingrained in my mind and what I've just grown up with and learned. They’ve been so impactful.

“I call my dad every day for advice and have him watch film. My grandpa was doing the same thing, so really everything that we do is derived from them.”

Part of that philosophy is on defense, where Kloppenburg’s SOU teams ranked in the top-15 nationally in points allowed per game every season under her leadership, and in the top-7 in defensive rating in three of those years.

“We’re going to be energetic and we’re going to defend,” Kloppenburg-Pruitt said. “It's fun basketball to watch, especially if you're a little bit old school and you love defense. It's really fun to watch because of just how hard that they're going to play and they're going to play for each other.”

However, Kloppenburg-Pruitt does see some differences in her coaching style as compared to her father and grandfather.

“I think for me it's having my own staple on it, my own style,” Kloppenburg-Pruitt said. “I think I have a different coaching style than my grandpa and my dad. I’m maybe a little more intense at times, but I also feel like just the relationship side with our players, especially being a woman, that's something that I’ve really put my own staple on.”

To foster those relationships with her new players, the squad went on a team retreat early in the school year, which she brought her son on, while Kloppenburg-Pruitt has been intentional about chatting with her players when they walk by her office.

“I don't love forced relationships; I want them to be organic,” Kloppenburg-Pruitt said. “I think giving them an insight on my family is really big, so they see me as a person and not just their coach, and vice versa. I think it needs to happen organically but I’m giving ourselves that space to build those relationships.”

Kloppenburg-Pruit is building relationships with her players similar to those she developed with her professors while studying at Point Loma.

“I just really enjoyed my professors,” Kloppenburg-Pruitt said of her time as a PLNU student-athlete. “They had this great balance of wanting to obviously push you, but they were also just so available if you needed them.”

Now back on The Point as Head Coach, and although she didn’t expect to leave Southern Oregon, Kloppenburg-Pruitt believes she is back where she belongs.

“We were about to buy a house (in Oregon) that was a little bit closer to campus and a little bit bigger for our family,” Kloppenburg-Pruitt said on moving back to PLNU. “I love coaching obviously but my family is the most important thing, and it needed to be the right fit for all of us.

“There were just so many things that God was pointing us back to this place.”

Kloppenburg-Pruitt makes her Golden Gym coaching debut as head coach of her alma mater on Friday against Cal State San Marcos at 4 p.m.

For the team's full schedule, click HERE.