With conference tourneys mostly over, schools are moving on.

So far (resigned = fired for purposes of this post):

Wichita State fired Jody Adams mid-season. I believe the current HC is an interim
Winthrop suspended Kevin Cook in mid-season and canned him at the end of the season.
Murray State fired Rob Cross
Nevada's Jane Albright is retiring
Southern Cal fired Cynthia Cooper-Dyke
Arkansas fired Jimmy Dykes
Florida fired Amanda Butler yesterday
Florida Atlantic fired Kellie Lewis-Jay

USC, Arkansas, and Florida are the big names so far.

Wow, I have no idea USC's records but gotta be bad when your alma mater fires you! I LOVED Cynthia Cooper when she played for the Comets. Was disappointed in her behavior towards her players when she coached at PVAMU. Thought she had a much better sideline demeanor this year with USC (at least in the game at Reed, which was a tough, back and forth game.)

Inca said:

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Wow, I have no idea USC's records but gotta be bad when your alma mater fires you! I LOVED Cynthia Cooper when she played for the Comets. Was disappointed in her behavior towards her players when she coached at PVAMU. Thought she had a much better sideline demeanor this year with USC (at least in the game at Reed, which was a tough, back and forth game.)

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They finished below .500 and dead last in the Pac. They did have an upset win vs Oregon State, but they were 2-8 vs Sagarin top 25 and 4-12 vs top 50. Sagarin has them at 43 overall.

Best wins/Sagarin rank
Oregon State/13
Arizona State/24
A&M/28
Colorado/48

I wonder if the USCw people hate seeing USC mean S. Carolina in anything.

Regarding getting fired by your alma mater - Butler at Florida and Dykes at Arkansas were also fired by their alma maters.

I wonder if any of these openings will hire assistants from either A&M or Vic's staff. In particular, Stricklin, the new AD at Florida, hired Vic at MSU, which Arkansas and Florida fans think means he will go after Schaefer. I'm wondering if success with Vic means he would go after a top assistant.

The Arkansas fans are still bitter about losing Blair. They complain about how terrible his replacement was, but after getting fired by the LadyBacks, Susie Gardner has been doing fine at Mercer. Mercer was a few seconds from an NCAA berth but Chattanooga came back in the 4th quarter of their conference tourney.

Cooper of USC sure coached a good game at Reed..played 11 players and put a good press on us in the 4th
quarter...perfect strategy vs. our team and it worked.

To our credit, we got better vs. a press the rest of the year except vs. S. Carolina
Vic used it to wear our team out for late in the game, but it was S. Carolina that turned us over and over.

More openings at smaller schools
Denver
Grand Canyon
Tenn State (retirement)

Lurking on Florida and Arkansas versions of TexAgs (but smaller) it seems like there's the usual "We need a coach with prior power conference success" stuff. What's funny to me is that if you look at the top of WBB, there are only a few that were hired that way. Blair is one, but we wouldn't have him if the Arkansas AD at the time had tried to keep him.

Some of it reflects who's been around for a long time, but notable coaches who were not even in a HC position when hired:
Geno (UConn)
Vic (Miss State)
Mulkey (Baylor)
Jeff Walz (Louisville)
Cori Close (UCLA)
Sue Semrau (Florida State)
Holly Warlick (Tenn)
Mike Neighbors (Washington)

In the 1 and 2 seeds, Tara Vanderveer and Brenda Frese moved from a power conference school to their current job. Muffet McGraw was at Lehigh. Dawn Staley was at Temple. Tara moved from Ohio State to Stanford so long ago that it's hard to know how serious tOSU was about women's sports. Frese was only at Minnesota for one year before moving to Maryland.

Overall, I only counted 9 coaches who I would consider big conference HC to big conference HC moves: Blair, Vanderveer, Frese, Versyp, McGuff, Fargas, MIttie, McCallie, Boyle.

Apparently this guy is known in WBB circles. @aggieWBB follows him.

Marshall Coach Matt Daniel resigns. Interesting statement

Quote:

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"I am so thankful for our time here," said Daniel. "Having both of our daughters born here, this place will always be special to us. Given my wife's work as a dentist, we were offered an opportunity to return home to Arkansas that we couldn't pass up. While I don't know what the future holds for me professionally, this decision really isn't about me. I am doing what I believe is best for us and giving our children the opportunity to grow up around their extended family."

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biobioprof said:

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With conference tourneys mostly over, schools are moving on.

So far (resigned = fired for purposes of this post):

Wichita State fired Jody Adams mid-season. I believe the current HC is an interim
Winthrop suspended Kevin Cook in mid-season and canned him at the end of the season.
Murray State fired Rob Cross
Nevada's Jane Albright is retiring
Southern Cal fired Cynthia Cooper-Dyke
Arkansas fired Jimmy Dykes
Florida fired Amanda Butler yesterday
Florida Atlantic fired Kellie Lewis-Jay

USC, Arkansas, and Florida are the big names so far.

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Did some of these really get fired or did they just resign?

Or are you implying a resignation = getting fired?

Surprised about butler at Florida. Not surprised about Cooper at USC.

Always though Dykes was out of his element but wanted to help his alma mater.

biobioprof said:

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Marshall Coach Matt Daniel resigns. Interesting statement

Quote:

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"I am so thankful for our time here," said Daniel. "Having both of our daughters born here, this place will always be special to us. Given my wife's work as a dentist, we were offered an opportunity to return home to Arkansas that we couldn't pass up. While I don't know what the future holds for me professionally, this decision really isn't about me. I am doing what I believe is best for us and giving our children the opportunity to grow up around their extended family."

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I can understand it if his wife is buying into a practice. Might provide more long term stability for the family. I bet he can land HS job or lessor college gig

I think Cooper-Dykes, Dykes, and Butler were effectively fired, even if they might have resigned. The Marshall coach looks like what I'd call a real resignation. But mostly I lumped the two groups because I'm too lazy to research them all, and either way it gives an idea of where the openings are.

Add Illinois to the list:

New AD has fired MBB, Football and WBB.

Wow - a new AD who's not afraid to make changes.

I was thinking maybe an assistant for the new coach at Arky.

Swish Appeal reporting Becky Hammon is a finalist for Florida

Good luck to Becky. Though I'd like her to get a men's job instead.

Of the big school jobs:

• Illinois hired the Wash U coach, Nancy Fahey, pretty quickly. Fahey is in the WBB HoF for winning a lot with DIII WuSTL. Bollant was fired on March 14. Fahey hired on March 22
• Florida has hired Cameron Newbauer from Belmont. Amanda Butler was fired on March 6. Newbauer was hired on March 27, after Becky Hammon turned the Gators down. There are rumors that while Hammon would have gotten a raise relative to being an assistant with the Spurs, the offer would have made her #12 in WBB HC salary in the SEC.
• USCw accepted Cynthia Cooper-Dyke's "resignation" on March 3. Haven't seen much on the rumor mill
• Arkansas accepted Jimmy Dykes' "resignation" on March 3. Arkansas hasn't announced, but the rumors are that they are willing to pay for the next HC.

The Arkansas fans seem to think that they would go after Vic or Mike Neighbors (linked thread is just one on that site; don't know how representative it is of Arkansas fans). Vic mentioned after the E8 win that he's not going anywhere, at least this year.

Not to mention that Blair Schaefer will be a senior next year.

Would Neighbors actually go to Arkansas? He's from Arkansas and his daughter is in her junior year there. His son is also living in Arkansas: he has two kids from a marriage that ended in divorce at some point before he became UW HC. He has LadyBack connections going back to when Blair hired him.

IIRC, he said he would have taken the job when Dykes was hired. But that was before his success at Washington. I don't see it happening, but then Nikki Fargas moving from UCLA to LSU might be a precedent.

I'd stay in Seattle. But ironically there could be a situation like when Blair came here if the UW AD can't or won't come close to what Arkansas would offer in salary.

and Morgan and Blair are roommates, plus he has the 6'7" gal back
Maybe if GB retires after next year, we can get Vic back and his Aggie staff.
I would not bet on it....Vic has now built his own legend in Starkville and GB at age 72
next fall making too much money to retire.

cs69ag said:

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and Morgan and Blair are roommates, plus he has the 6'7" gal back
Maybe if GB retires after next year, we can get Vic back and his Aggie staff.
I would not bet on it....Vic has now built his own legend in Starkville and GB at age 72
next fall making too much money to retire.

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Don't forget that Vivians will be back next year too. And I read somewhere that while Okorie is a senior, she has another year of eligibility left.

They'll miss Dillingham, Richardson, and Chapel. But Vic has a solid if unspectacular recruiting class coming in, and bench players from this year who could step up for those roles. And he has an Arkansas transfer, Jordan Danberry who should be eligible in January. Danberry was a 5 star PG out of HS. I was surprised that Arkansas let her transfer within the SEC.

Your point about building his own legend in Starkville is important, IMO. Has anyone here ever done this?

Quote:

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And now, Mississippi State is on the verge of competing for a national title. Something that is incredibly rare for teams from Starkville.

And because of that, I'm willing to get a tattoo if the Bulldogs can make it to the national title game. However, it will not be just any tattoo. That'd be dumb. I'll get something appropriate and inspired by Vic Schaefer.

"Praise the Lord and Go Dawgs!"

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He's talking about doing this if they beat UConn... whether or not they win the finals!

Seattle media finally notice that Arkansas has been courting Washington's WBB coach.

Quote:

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UW officials were not immediately available, but sources close the team said Neighbors is expected to accept an offer from Arkansas.

He was believed to be the one of the top candidates for the Razorbacks along with Mississippi State coach Vic Schaefer when Jimmy Dykes resigned March 3 following 13-17 season that included a 2-14 record in the SEC. After guiding Arkansas to the 2015 NCAA tournament his first year, Dykes had two losing seasons and was 43-49 in three years.

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He was reported to be making <$300k/year and Arkansas was going to double that. $1M buyout!

With Neighbors moving to Arkansas, that means the two open P5 jobs are both in the Pac, which despite the SEC getting 2 teams into the finals has a case for being the best overall conference this season.

Reports are that Neighbors is paying the $1M buyout himself. Which I guess you can do if you are getting a massive pay raise... but I wonder if that really means something like getting a very favorable loan from some Arkansas booster. There were reports that he was making <$300K/year and that Arkansas was going to double it, but this story put his compensation at UW at $410K.

I can't find it again, but somewhere on the web I saw a comment that Washington getting raided for two coaches in a row (McGuff to Ohio State before Neighbors to Arkansas) meant that the two buyouts $1.7M for McGuff, $1M for Neighbors was enough to pay for >5 years of the WBB HC salary at the rate the Huskies were paying.

That's one way to make WBB a revenue positive sport!

Is racerfink still around?

Swish Appeal reporting that FGCU coach Karl Smesko is the top candidate for the Southern Cal job after Stanford Assoc. HC Kate Paye was offered the job but said no.

That has me wondering if Paye is staying at Stanford or is going to get the Washington job.

Washington hires Long Beach coach Jody Wynn

Quote:

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Wynn comes to Seattle with more than 20 years of collegiate coaching experience. Most recently, she led Long Beach State to three consecutive 20-win campaigns, including its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1992. The 49ers nearly pulled off one of the tournament's biggest upsets this season, narrowly falling to No. 2 seed Oregon State 56-55.

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Smesko turns down USCw. Staying at Florida Gulf Coast.

What a nightmare for one of the historically important WBB programs. They fired Cooper-Dyke at the same time as Arkansas dumped Jimmy Dykes. Arkansas hired Neighbors and Washington hired a replacement since then, and USCw will end up with someone who is somewhere between their 3rd and 5th choice.

And while it's admirable in some ways to not overspend on a non-revenue sport, it's hard to separate that from a perception of a lack of commitment to success.

USCw hires Mark Trakh from NMSU. This is kind of an unusual hire, since Trakh was the Trojan WBB coach from 2004-9 before resigning and being replaced by Michael Cooper. NMSU hired Trakh in 2011 and he took the NM Aggies to the WAC championship the last 3 years. That was good for 3 first round appearances in the NCAAs; they lost to Stanford this year.

North Carolina Central hires Trisha Stafford-Odom as coach
May 8, 2017 Associated Press

DURHAM, N.C. -- Former North Carolina and Duke assistant coach Trisha Stafford-Odom is the new women's basketball coach at North Carolina Central.

The school announced Stafford-Odom's hiring Monday.

Stafford-Odom spent the past three seasons at Division II Concordia Irvine in California. She spent two years each on the staffs at North Carolina and Duke before that and has also been an assistant at UCLA.

Athletic director Ingrid Wicker McCree said Stafford-Odom "will definitely help move our women's basketball program to the next level."

Stafford-Odom replaces Vanessa Taylor. McCree said in March that Taylor's contract would not be renewed after she went 33-113 in five seasons and 8-21 in 2016-

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Michigan has hired Wesley Brooks as a women's basketball assistant coach.

The school announced the move Monday. Brooks replaces Megan Duffy, who left to become the head coach at Miami of Ohio.

Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico says Brooks brings "a tremendous amount of energy and passion" to the job.
Brooks spent the past two seasons on the staff at Utah. Prior to that, he was an assistant at North Texas and Texas Southern.

Brooks graduated from West Virginia in 2004 with a degree in broadcast journalism. While he was an undergraduate at West Virginia, he was a manager for the men's basketball team under coach John Beilein. Beilein is now the men's coach at Michigan.