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Alexa PhilippouESPN
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- Covers women’s college basketball and the WNBA
- He previously covered UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Sun for Hartford Courant
- A Stanford graduate and born in Baltimore with additional experience in the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Cincinnati Inquirer
WNBA legend and Basketball Memorial Hall of Fame Tina Thompson has been fired as the women’s basketball coach in Virginia after finishing her fourth lost season at the helm of the Cavaliers.
Virginia sporting director Carla Williams, who hired Thompson in 2018, announced on Thursday the termination of Thompson’s contract, which had one year left.
“Unfortunately, we have not experienced the success that this program expects and deserves,” Williams said in a statement. “I am grateful for Coach Thompson’s efforts and wish her all the best.”
Thompson made 30-63 in Virginia in his first coaching job, failing to direct the Cavaliers until the end of the first half in the ACC.
The Cavaliers, who canceled their 2020-21 campaign in the middle of the season due to injuries and complications from a pandemic, finished 2021-22 with a record 5-22 (2-14 in ACC play plus two losses) after losing to Wake Forest in the first round of the tournament ACC.
The school said it would immediately begin a national search to find Thompson’s successor.
As the first pick in the WNBA’s first draft in 1997, Thompson was one of the league’s top players. Her legendary playing career, mostly with the Houston Comets, but also with the Los Angeles Sparks and Seattle Storm, includes four consecutive WNBA Comet titles (1997-2000) and eight All-WNBA nominations. She was the league’s leading scorer until Diana Taurazi surpassed her in 2017. Thompson also won Olympic gold medals with the United States in 2004 and 2008.
Virginia’s women’s basketball program has a decorated success story dating back to the 1980s and 1990s. Under longtime coach Debbie Ryan Cavaliers, he made 24 appearances in the NCAA tournaments and qualified for seven elite eights between 1988 and 1996. With Dawn Staley on the floor, Virginia made three consecutive final fours from 1990 to 1992 and fell in the game. from the national championship in.
Virginia last won an ACC regular season title in 2000 and a crown in a 1993 tournament.
The program recently gave the WNBA Draft pick Jocelyn Willoughby, who played half of her career under Thompson before being selected in the first round by Phoenix Mercury and exchanged for New York Liberty.