Karen Rapier

(Soon to be former) Michigan associate head coach is interested in the Missouri State job, where she played and coached under Cheryl Burnett. (The coaching staff at Michigan has stayed on until a replacement is named to help with the transition.)

Missouri State

Missouri State's coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson resigned. She followed Cheryl Burnett there, and apparently couldn't match Burnett's success.

Veronica Hicks

Veronica Hicks, the only member of Michigan's 2007 recruiting class had a quadruple double (40 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals) last season.

April 15th

According to this article, Michigan hopes to name a new coach by April 15th. It seems likely (if not sooner) - the final four will be done (not that Michigan is likely to be talking to any of the head coaches there, but I suppose they could be interested in one or more assistants) and the coaching merry-go-round should have played out enough by then.

Pros & cons of a new coach

A new coach at a struggling program always brings a sense of optimism (at least until the next season gets underway, and usually longer). The downside is the turmoil it can cause with the current members of the team. In the case of Cheryl Burnett at Michigan four years ago, the player turnover severely reduced the numbers on the team in her 2nd & 3rd seasons, which made things even harder.

So far, the impact of coach Burnett's retirement has been minimal. Next years sole recruit, Veronica Hicks, intends to honor her commitment. 2008 verbal commitment Alex Guyton has reopened her recruitment, but is still interested in Michigan depending on the new coach. And according to a posting on umgoblue.com, 2007 recruit Ta'Shia Phillips is considering Michigan, along with several schools.

Lets hope things stay positive and the team doesn't go through anything like it did during the Guevara/Burnett transition.

Coaching Carousel

In addition to the Michigan opening, several other BCS (not to mention smaller schools) have women's basketball coaching vacancies. Among them: LSU, Florida, Washington, Penn State, Texas, and Cincinnati. Arkansas has filled their opening with Louisville's coach and Louisville in turn hired an assistant from Maryland.

To further muddy the waters, Texas is apparently interested in Duke's current coach Gail Goestenkors and Florida is reportedly interested in Connecticut's Geno Auriemma. While I doubt Michigan will be competing directly with schools like Texas (or Duke), they might well be competing with whichever school loses their coach to Duke.... Not to mention the extra uncertainty could delay decisions as schools and coaches examine all their options.

Other Candidates

I've seen other names mentioned as possible candidates for the head coaching position, but most of them seemed to be idle speculation. One that is intriguing is Shimmy Gray-Miller, former U of M player and coach at St. Louis University in the Atlantic-10. By all accounts she's done a great job at St. Louis and she's from Flint. The only downside is that her head coaching experience is a bit thin.

New Coach

As anyone who follows the team knows, coach Cheryl Burnett announced her retirement on March 6th after a disappointing 4 seasons at Michigan. Given the teams record and the fact that she was in the fourth year of a five year contract it wasn't too surprising. At that point the AD pretty much has to either extend the contract or the coach becomes a lame duck. Given her record up to that point, an extension would have been hard to justify.

The search for a new coach is underway. As far as I know, nothing has been said publicly by the University about the who they are looking at, but at least four candidates are known because Michigan has asked permission to their current schools to interview them: Bowling Green's Curt Miller, Eastern Michigan's Suzy Merchant, Vanderbilt's Melanie Balcomb and Wisconsin Green-Bay's Kevin Borseth.

New Blog

Coverage of the University of Michigan Women's Basketball team is sparse at best. Not too surprising given their lackluster record and the apparent indifference toward the program shown by the Athletic Department at times. I'm hoping to have enough time to keep this blog relatively current, though I'm sure things will slow down during the off season.