Stock down: Which women’s college basketball coaches are on the hot seat?

I’ve broadly split these into two categories: those who are likely already under pressure, and those who are likely to end up there unless they outperform expectations in conference play. Those expectations are crucial, since what might look mediocre on paper might be up to snuff for certain programs when accounting for program budgets and athletic department aspirations.

As an aside, coaching turnover, of course, has significant personal and financial ramifications for both head coaches and their staffs who don’t have the same level of financial cushion to brace themselves. However, something so inherent to the sport as the pressure to win — and win now — makes coaching turnover an unfortunate reality to monitor.

Already on the hot seat

Coquese Washington — Rutgers

The Rutgers program rapidly deteriorated in C. Vivian Stringer’s last years at the helm, thanks to a combination of the transfer portal, a recruiting strategy that failed to adapt to the modern landscape, and the limbo of Stringer’s year in absentia. Things have stalled out under Washington, who has won 10 regular-season conference games through her first three years.

Rutgers is not an easy place to win. The program’s infrastructure needs a significant overhaul, and the university’s lagging statewide cachet compared to some conference counterparts means the program doesn’t have a notable recruiting advantage in a strong state for high school talent.

But Washington’s buyout drops from $750,000 to $500,000 on April 1, 2026, and every assistant is on a one-year deal, heavily signaling cleaning house after this season. In a step in the wrong direction, the Scarlet Knights lost by 17 to Stony Brook last month, the worst Division I team by Her Hoop Stats rating that any power conference team has lost to this season.

Carolyn Kieger — Penn State

After last season, Kieger has had twice as many Big Ten seasons with only one win (two) as she’s had with a conference record of at least .500 (one). Of the two top-100 recruits she secured in her tenure, one finished her collegiate career with Vanderbilt last year (Leilani Kapinus) and the other is currently at Indiana (Shay Ciezki), although they have landed a top-100, four-star commit from the 2026 class.

The Nittany Lions’ best players are Gracie Merkle, a senior center who finishes quite well in the post but struggles to defend, and Kiyomi McMiller, a transfer from Rutgers who had off-court issues with the Scarlet Knights. McMiller is one of the nation’s least efficient volume shooters, and she also struggles defensively. These talent issues align with an allocation of House revenue that is believed to be one of the lowest in the Big Ten.

It doesn’t help matters that Kieger isn’t making up for this gap in recruiting under-the-radar players, developing internally. Neither do accusations of severe misconduct leveled at Kieger last season, dating back to her prior stop at Marquette. (Kieger and Penn State both responded to the allegations, citing positive player feedback and experiences without disputing specific alleged events.)

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Sytia Messer — UCF

Messer was hired at UCF after it lost a bidding war over Katie Abrahamson-Henderson to Georgia, a war that was ultimately decided by the compensation each school offered assistant coaches. That issue has come to bear for Messer, who had been a legendary recruiter under Kim Mulkey for nearly a decade but has not succeeded in bringing talent to Orlando. This has been in part due to a lack of investment in the assistant staff.

Messer’s staff includes AnnMarie Gilbert, who has been fired from both Eastern Michigan and Detroit Mercy under allegations of horrifying abuse that have not been answered for. On the court, the Knights have ranked in the mid-100s in HHS rating each year during Messer’s tenure, alongside the likes of New Mexico State and Georgetown. This season, the Knights have improved to rank 110th in HHS rating, but still have no power conference wins to show for it.

Unlike with Kieger, Messer can’t point to a lack of player compensation to excuse the roster’s lack of talent: Per On3, UCF is allocating five percent of its House settlement revenue sharing to women’s basketball. That rate is more in line with mid-tier power conference teams than the low-end ones UCF has been keeping company with.

Messer is in the penultimate year of her contract, which, in the current landscape, means this spring she needs to be either extended or fired, lest recruits and assistants be left unsure of who they’ll be playing for or working under in the long term. Per SB Nation’s Mitchell Northam, the university considered firing Messer last spring.

Joni Taylor — Texas A&M

Taylor’s tenure in College Station has been up and down, but ultimately underwhelming. Taylor inherited a team already on the downswing, but couldn’t muster leveling the team out in Year 1 when the program won just nine games, tied for the second-worst season win total in program history.

The 2023-24 season looked like a rebound season thanks to the additions of Aicha Coulibaly, Endyia Rogers and Lauren Ware in the transfer portal, paired with the breakout of Janiah Barker, lifting the Aggies above even Gary Blair’s last season at the helm. However, Barker would transfer the following offseason, while Rogers graduated, leaving the 2024-25 team with an uphill battle they couldn’t win as they backslid to a 10-win season.

With the exception of the 2023-24 season, basically everything has gone poorly for Taylor. The staff has since failed to properly read the market, paying power conference money for former backups or taking risks on low-major players that many expected to transfer only up to the mid-major level. The Aggies’ high school recruiting hasn’t fared any better, with all four of Taylor’s top-100 recruits now playing for other teams after underwhelming at A&M.

Early this season, there are flecks of optimism as low-major transfers Ny’Ceara Pryor and Fatmata Janneh have put up big numbers in nonconference play, though it remains to be seen how they fare once they enter SEC play. If there isn’t a notable upward trend the rest of this season, there’s always buyout money on hand in College Station.

Tory Verdi — Pitt

This is Pitt, where there may not be buyout money on hand. Unlike the first four schools mentioned on this list, it was not initially clear if Pitt would even be able to max out on athletic department revenue sharing (revshare) when the House settlement terms were announced.

Despite a competitive head coach salary, the roster and assistant staff are underfunded compared to ACC peers. And that’s been painfully clear during Verdi’s entire tenure — beginning with losses in his first month on the job to Coppin State and Akron and continuing through one of the most embarrassing losses in recent women’s basketball history last month.

Pitt is an incredibly difficult place to win because of that lack of investment. But at a certain point — namely, losing to an in-state D-III — the hole is just dug too deeply to climb out of. The only question is if it’s worth it to the university to buy out the last three years of Verdi’s contract.

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Joanna Bernabei-McNamee — Boston College

There has been no reporting on Bernabei-McNamee’s contract, so I can’t evaluate the likelihood of a change here based on her remaining years and buyout (suffice it to say that any buyout comfortably into seven digits would be enough to keep her at Boston College).

But the situation the Eagles are in is dire: Since finishing fourth in the ACC in 2019-20, a year that without COVID would have earned the program its first NCAA tournament birth since 2006, the players who fueled that run have steadily transferred out. The extreme lack of player compensation relative to its power conference peers has contributed to every decent player since 2019-20 eventually transferring. Boston College has lost to Holy Cross, Providence and Bryant this season, three teams that it should be able to handle soundly.

Katie Gearlds — Purdue

As with Bernabei-McNamee, Purdue under Gearlds has been unable to retain talent. Mary Ashley Stevenson immediately transferred away to be a backup, Rashunda Jones left for Michigan State, and the Reynolds sisters decommitted and transferred. The losses on the court aren’t any better, after eight total Big Ten wins across the last two seasons and defeats to Purdue Fort Wayne and Central Michigan.

Gearlds shouldn’t have trouble with roster finances: per Greater Lafayette Sports Report, Purdue’s revshare with women’s basketball is in line with many other power conference programs (around five percent of the max $20.5 million). The school’s NIL dysfunction has limited what she could do on top of that, but it does not account for the wide gap between what a program should be able to do with its roster and what it actually does.

Once again, as with Bernabei-McNamee, it comes down to buyout: Does Purdue have the means to spend $1.6 million on a buyout after this season? That depends on whether the dysfunction from boosters can be sorted out.

One losing streak away

Krista Gerlich — Texas Tech

Texas Tech has money. A lot of money. Like, a lot of money. So much money.

And relatively little of that is going to women’s basketball. There’s some, enough to pick up a four-star recruit per year and make the finalists for a couple of five-stars, including Aaliyah Chavez last winter. The program is certainly making its relatively low amount of revshare stretch. But it’s not the kind of high-six-figures investment that could allow the women’s basketball program to pluck a few high-level transfers out of the portal or secure a five-star commit for the first time.

That money is there, though the boosters in question weren’t around when Gerlich was hired. She has cracked a .300 win percentage in Big 12 play just once in her tenure, so the results aren’t begging for an investment opportunity, either. With one year left on her deal after this season, this could be a make-or-break season for Texas Tech in deciding who’s at the helm if it invests more in this program.

Amaka Agugua-Hamilton — Virginia

Virginia was in dire straits when Agugua-Hamilton took over in 2022; her predecessor, Tina Thompson, alienated fans and boosters alike. Agugua-Hamilton has since revived the program, more than doubling home attendance across her tenure and securing a bevy of expensive transfers over the past two years. But the roster construction from the portal has been baffling — they brought in five centers and a power forward this year — and is accompanied by poor high school recruiting.

You can make do with only hitting on high school recruits every now and then and filling in with transfers, but that requires a carefully built depth chart. Virginia is instead forced to play ill-fitting lineups and is underperforming in a year when Agugua-Hamilton needed to make a leap to at least .500 in conference play. If the program has turned around to the point where at-large bids in March are within reach — and they probably should be — Agugua-Hamilton not being able to get there with Kymora Johnson becomes grounds for reviewing her buyout.

Kelly Rae Finley — Florida

Florida gave Finley a five-year contract after a shockingly good season as the interim in 2021-22, a reward for stabilizing the program after Cameron Newbauer resigned due to allegations of severe abuse. The university did not conduct a wider search before removing the interim tag. Finley has since gone 5-11 in the SEC in three-straight years, and is in the penultimate year of her contract, so a decision is coming this spring.

Finley does have two four-star recruits in the class of 2026, and the athletic department invests little in women’s basketball relative to other universities atop the annual revenue and expenses rankings. That might be enough for a minor extension if results in SEC play are passable, but if they once again finish 5-11 or worse, leadership will think harder about letting her go than they did last spring.

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