March 8, 2025
Three Big 12 coaching jobs open before tournament’s end
Houston, Arizona State and BYU head into the offseason looking for head coaches
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Although the Big 12 Tournament won’t finish until Sunday afternoon, three member schools are already making coaching changes.
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The first is Houston, where longtime coach Ronald Hughey announced his resignation on Thursday. In 11 years at the helm, the Cougars went 140-195 overall with a 65-119 mark in conference play. They fell to Colorado in the opening round of the Big 12 Tournament.
“We had some unfortunate things happen with injuries, and a lot of other teams would have folded, especially when we had to play a couple of games with five people,” Hughey told reporters after the game.
Houston started the season with just 10 players on the roster and went on to play 18 of its 30 games with nine or fewer players available due to injury. The Cougars lost Avalon Miller, Maliyah Johnson and Kateri Poole for the season, and Leilani Augmon missed a month with a broken nose.
Hughey went on to thank his players for their ability “to just be resilient and fight through and keep the faith and represent as best we could with the University of Houston across our chest.”
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Also plagued by injuries this season, conference newcomer Arizona State announced on Saturday that Natasha Adair would not return next season. The Sun Devils failed to earn a postseason bid during her three-year tenure, going 29-62. The Sun Devils won their first Big 12 Tournament game but fell to Iowa State in the second.
“With a team that pretty much lost three to four starters throughout the season, this team never quit,” Adair told reporters after the loss. “It was next woman up.”
Graduate guard Jazion Jackson and junior Kennedy Fauntleroy were both injured during conference play, and graduate forward Maggie Besselink went down with a season-ending injury. Just eight players saw the court for Arizona State in the tournament.
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BYU and head coach Amber Whiting also announced their decision to part ways on Saturday after the team’s preliminary-round loss on Thursday evening. Whiting had a 45-51 record in three years at the helm and went 13-17 this year.
Although it failed to qualify for the NCAA Tournament, BYU did compete in the WNIT in 2023 and WBIT in 2024.
“We have lost eight games this season by 10 points or less, and we have been right there in a bunch of them,” Whiting told reporters after the team’s Big 12 Tournament loss to Central Florida. “I see the good that we have. I see we need to clean up little things in the end, but turnovers and offensive rebounds have plagued us all season.”
Written by Kathleen Gier
Kathleen Gier is Executive Editor of The IX Sports and The IX Basketball. As a Kansas City native, she occasionally pitches in on Big 12 coverage in addition to other stories from events like the WNBA All-Star Game or Final Four.
