We formally have our first Energy 4 opening of the 2025 teaching carousel season in girls’s faculty basketball.
After 15 seasons on the helm of Missouri, Robin Pingeton introduced Wednesday that she is resigning on the finish of this marketing campaign. Her Tigers are tied for final place within the Southeastern Convention this yr with a 2-12 mark in SEC play and a 13-16 total document.
Pingeton leaves Mizzou with an total document of 249-216. Her finest stretch main this system coincided with Sophie Cunningham’s presence on the roster from 2015 to 2019. Over that 4 season stretch, the Tigers have been ranked as excessive as eleventh within the AP High 25 Ballot, made 4 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, and received 39 video games within the SEC. Pingeton by no means acquired her crew into the second weekend of March Insanity although, and by no means once more led the Tigers to a match berth with out Cunningham – the 2016 SEC Freshman of the Yr and three-time All-SEC First Crew choice who has carved out a profession for herself within the WNBA.
Missouri has had a shedding document in 4 of their final six seasons. Because the Tigers’ document dwindled, Pingeton was unable to retain standout gamers that went on to have success elsewhere, like Aijha Blackwell, LaDazhia Williams and Mama Dembele — the latter of whom has helped USF win 9 straight video games this season.
Nonetheless, Pingeton leaves Missouri as its second winningest coach of all time. Maybe one in all her most memorable triumphs was when the Tigers upset No. 1 South Carolina in 2021, which was this system’s first-ever win over the top-ranked crew.
“After quite a lot of reflection, I’ve determined it’s time for a brand new voice to guide Mizzou Ladies’s Basketball,” Pingeton stated in an announcement. “This can be a determination I arrived at after initiating conversations with Laird Veatch, and I’m extremely grateful for his management and assist all through this course of. I like Columbia, Mizzou and the superb neighborhood that has supported my household and this program for thus a few years. That is the top of this chapter. I’m trying ahead to the subsequent one.”
The SEC could be the hardest convention in faculty basketball. It boasts a pair of groups which have received the final three nationwide titles in South Carolina and LSU – coached by two of the very best to ever do it in Daybreak Staley and Kim Mulkey – and one other crew in Texas that appears like a contender beneath Vic Schaefer. In the meantime, Tennessee is experiencing a first-year renaissance beneath Kim Caldwell, Kentucky is aggressive once more after hiring Kenny Brooks, Vanderbilt appears to have stumbled onto a reliable star in Mikayla Blakes, and Oklahoma, Alabama and Ole Miss have all been ranked within the AP High 25 Ballot this season. Mississippi State can be eyeing its third consecutive 20-win season beneath Sam Purcell.
A number of brokers and fellow coaches anticipated Missouri to open this offseason, however assessments of the job and Missouri’s place within the SEC are combined.
“They wish to be good, however it doesn’t seem to be they’re prepared to spend the cash to be nice,” one longtime assistant coach informed SB Nation.
Willingness to spend cash and an funding in girls’s faculty basketball has helped separate the haves and have-nots in conferences just like the SEC for a number of years, however the hole might turn out to be much more noticeable with the Home settlement looming. Georgia, for instance, goes to provide its third-biggest piece of the income sharing pie – about $900,000, in response to the Athens Banner-Herald – to girls’s basketball.
However one agent stated Missouri would “be pleased” to be in the course of the pack within the convention and make the NCAA Event “on a considerably common foundation.” That’s a bar that’s clearable if Missouri makes the precise rent.
Right here’s who could be within the combine to guide the Tigers:
Molly Miller
It may nearly be assured that Miller will get a name about this job. The 38-year-old Missouri native is seen as one of many rising stars in teaching circles and acquired her begin in teaching at her alma mater, Division II Drury, which is about simply three hours southwest of Columbia. As the pinnacle coach of Drury, Miller guided the Panthers to a 180-17 document and an look within the Division II Closing 4 in 2019. She’s had success since making the leap to Division I too, sporting a 110-37 total document with Grand Canyon within the WAC. Kentucky briefly kicked the tires on Miller final season earlier than hiring Brooks, however she may find yourself within the SEC in spite of everything.
Kristen Gillespie
The final time Missouri employed a girls’s basketball coach, she got here from Illinois State. It may not be a nasty concept for the Tigers to take a look at the identical place they pulled Pingeton from, as a result of Gillespie has piled up quite a lot of wins whereas main the Redbirds. Gillespie – who performed for Kay Yow at N.C. State – has gone 149-92 in eight seasons at Illinois State. In 2022, she led them to their first NCAA Event look in 14 years, and in 2023 received the common season convention title and the Missouri Valley Coach of the Yr award.
Kellie Harper
Whereas Harper didn’t meet expectations at Tennessee, take into account this: she is aware of the state, she is aware of the SEC and she or he’s received in each. Between 4 stops as a head coach – Western Carolina, N.C. State, Missouri State and Tennessee – Harper has a 60.2 successful proportion, 9 NCAA Event appearances and 5 convention championships beneath her belt in 20 seasons on the sidelines. She took Missouri State to the Candy 16 and helped flip it right into a mid-major energy, and led the Vols to the second weekend of March Insanity twice. On this yr off, Harper has stayed plugged into the sport by working for the SEC Community. Harper confronted immense strain to win at her two earlier Energy 4 stops: at N.C. State, she needed to comply with Kay Yow and at Tennessee she coached within the shadow of Pat Summitt. At Missouri, filling Pingeton’s sneakers might be a a lot simpler elevate.
