Banghart To Take Over As HC at North Carolina
by dillon77 (2019-04-30 08:33:13)
Edited on 2019-04-30 10:46:11
Post Reply Return to McGraw's Bench

Princeton's Head Coach Courtney Banghart is taking over Sylvia Hatchell's role as HC at the University of North Carolina Women's Basketball team, according to this AP story and a post on Princeton's website.

Banghart, who has been at Princeton since 2007, has won seven Ivy League titles with the Tigers. Her best year was 2014-15, when the Tigers went 31-1 and Banghart was named Naismith national women's coach of the year.

Since then, she has associated with some high-profile coaching searches at prestigious institutions, including Virginia and most notably, Vanderbilt, where she was a finalist with Niele Ivey.

I think this is a good hire for UNC, but there are challenges:
- level of competition is going to be notably raised. Yes, Courtney, that's Notre Dame and Louisville every season.
- will she adjust her recruiting accordingly? This is one of those finely balanced equations. On one hand, one might say Banghart is hindered by Princton's academic standards. On the other hand, those kids are usually smart and technically proficient. Plus she manages to get some pretty good athletes there: seen Bella Alarie?
On the other hand, if she can expand her base on that kind of athlete, go after kids that like the UNC brand and get some ballers, this could be a team to watch.
- along those lines, will Malu Tshitenge-Mutombo, who had ND as a finalist for 2019 before committing to UNC under Hatchell, stay at UNC? We've seen no indication that she was wavering until now; perhaps she was waiting to see who was selected at head coach. Sure a call will be forthcoming to her very soon. Time will tell, but this hire looks an upgrade, based on the last few years at UNC.

That said, looks like Niele isn't going anywhere this year.




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