Sometimes, it doesn’t take long for a first-time head coach to find success quickly.
A few years ago, Shawn Poppie took Chattanooga to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments in his first two seasons on the job. As the interim coach at Florida Gulf Coast last season, Chelsea Lyles didn’t miss a beat after Karl Smesko left for the WNBA, guiding the Eagles to another ASUN title. In a similar circumstance, Gavin Petersen coached Utah to another March Madness appearance after succeeding Lynne Roberts.
Advertisement
There are at least 15 coaches in Division I who will be in the lead chair for the first time ever this upcoming season, including two at the Power 4 level.
And there’s a handful worth paying close attention to, based on their resume and who they’ve coached under, their success as a player, or the job they’re inheriting.
This list is specifically reserved for those who have never been a head coach in college at any level. So while many will be watching the return of Matthew Mitchell at Houston, Kellie Harper’s comeback at Missouri, how Ashton Feldhaus does at Morehead State after success at the Division II level, Keisha Newell’s leap to Oakland, Jacey Brooks’ jump to NIU, and how Jill Pizzotti will far in succeeding Doug Bruno, this list is for head coaching rookies only.
Here’s a few that deserve our attention…
Advertisement
Winston Gandy, Grand Canyon
Gandy has worked under an impressive list of head coaches in women’s college basketball including Brenda Frese, Tina Langley, Kara Lawson and most recently Dawn Staley. After helping guide the Gamecocks to a national championship in 2024 and a title game appearance in 2025, he now takes over a Grand Canyon program that was built up by Molly Miller.
But Gandy has already remolded the program, bringing in 13 new players — nine transfers and four freshmen. The Lopes also enter a new conference this season, set to begin play in the Mountain West. Grand Canyon’s schedule is a challenging one this year as the Lopes will take on four Power 4 opponents and the likes of UTSA, Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s and Santa Clara in their non-conference slate before opening Mountain West play.
Aside from his resume in women’s college hoops, Gandy also spent three years working with the NBA’s Washington Wizards. It’s also worth noting that his coaching staff features Celeste Taylor, who was a finalist for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year in 2023 when she played for Gandy at Duke.
Advertisement
Karen Blair, Georgia Tech
Blair gets her first crack at being a head coach after serving as Brenda Frese’s top lieutenant at Maryland for several years. In College Park, Blair helped Frese land stellar high school recruits and comb the portal for other pieces that fit, which translated into rosters that won a lot of games for the Terps — including three Big Ten titles.
She’ll try to do the same at Georgia Tech, but landing and retaining star players has been difficult to do in Atlanta. Eight players from the roster Nell Fortner had last season have transferred, including starters Kara Dunn (USC) and Tonie Morgan (Kentucky), and All-ACC Rookie selection Dani Carnegie (Georgia). Blair’s first roster features 10 newcomers and five international players.
Blair has been in coaching for 26 years, immediately joining the staff at her alma mater — new ACC member SMU — after her playing career finished in 1999. She also worked at Colgate, UT Arlington, North Texas and VCU before joining Frese at Maryland in 2018. The Terps won 78.1 percent of their games in Blair’s seven seasons in College Park.
Advertisement
Raina Harmon, Florida Gulf Coast
Karl Smesko was the only coach the Eagles ever had until last fall, when he left just a few games into the 2024-25 season to go coach the Atlanta Dream in the WNBA. After guiding FGCU to another ASUN title and NCAA Tournament appearance, his successor Chelsea Lyles followed him. Now the reins of the mid-major powerhouse are being commanded by Harmon, who spent eight seasons as an assistant coach at Iowa under Lisa Bluder and Jan Jensen, where the Hawkeyes enjoyed some of their most successful seasons in program history.
FGCU has been to eight consecutive NCAA Tournaments and has advanced to the second round three times in that stretch. Seven new players have arrived in Fort Myers to help keep that sort of success rolling under Harmon.
Lee Cummard, BYU
Jeff Judkins led the Cougars to 11 NCAA Tournaments and three deep runs in the WNIT in 21 seasons. Things didn’t go as well for his successor Amber Whiting, who failed to finish a season with a winning record in three years on the job, which included BYU’s transition from the West Coast Conference to the Big 12.
Advertisement
A former Mountain West Player of the Year for BYU’s men’s team, Cummard has been an assistant coach for the women’s team since 2019, working under Judkins and then Whiting. In stints as the acting head coach, Cummard is 3-0 with a pair of wins over ranked opponents.
Cummard enters this season with a roster that has some upside to it as it features reigning Big 12 Rookie of the Year Delaney Gibb — who spent part of the summer with the Canadian national team — and 3-point sharpshooter Kailey Woolston, who returns to the Cougars after a year off for an LDS mission trip. In the 2023-24 campaign, Woolston — as a true freshman — was 13th nationally with a 46.6 shooting percentage from behind the arc.
Alexis Sherard, Liberty
After coaching the Flames since 1999 — a tenure that saw Liberty change conferences twice and appear in 15 NCAA Tournaments — Carey Green called it a career on Aug. 28. Green piled up 591 career wins and had just one losing season after 26 years at the helm in Lynchburg.
Advertisement
Succeeding him is Alexis Sherard, who has been on Green’s staff for 18 seasons. A handful of times over the years, Sherard filled in for Green as head coach, stints that included a 6-0 record during Green’s absence in 2021, and a win in the Big South Tournament quarterfinals in 2013.
While Sherard inherits a team that won 25 games last season and nearly upset Kentucky in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, just one starter from that squad — Elisabeth Aegisdottir — returns. The reigning CUSA champs brought in two transfers and four freshmen to fill in the gaps.
Karlie Burris, Portland State
Since jumping back into the Division I ranks in the late 1990s, Portland State has appeared in just two NCAA Tournaments, losing in the first round as a No. 15 seed in both 2010 and 2019. That 2019 season, then under the direction of Lynn Kennedy, was also the last time the Vikings finished a season with a winning record.
Advertisement
Burris now gets the chance to make her mark on the program. She knows the area well, having starred at the University of Portland where she was a sharp 3-point shooter and a two-time All-WCC selection under former longtime coach Jim Sollars. After getting her master’s degree at Seattle University, she embarked on a coaching career that has kept her mostly on the west coast, with stops at Northern Arizona, Cal State Fullerton, Utah State and UNLV. At her last stop, under Lindy La Rocque, she helped the Lady Rebels win four consecutive Mountain West titles and make three March Madness trips.
Her inaugural staff at Portland State includes Raina Perez, who was named Big West Player of the Year at Cal State Fullerton after Burris helped bring her there from Northern Arizona. The two are reunited after Perez finished her playing career at N.C. State and worked as an assistant at Rice and UC Riverside.
Also watch: Laura Dinkins at Northern Arizona, Kelly Killion at American, Erin Mills-Reid at Mercyhurst, Cophie Anderson at Oral Roberts, Shannon Bush at Colgate, Kristen Sharkey at Buffalo, Jhasmin Player at Incarnate Word, Blanche Alverson at San Diego, and Tai Dillard at Prairie View A&M
