Cowgirls Change at Head Coach Product of Many Circumstances

STILLWATER – Don’t cry for soon-to-be former Oklahoma State Cowgirls head basketball coach Jim Littell. The 17-year coach in the OSU program and for the past 11-years the caretaker of it as head coach rolled into the local Fuzzy’s Tacos Monday night when he radio show would normallyhave been held. He was with his family complete with grandkids. Littell is the proverbial example of you can’t keep a good man down. He will coach his butt off later this week against Texas Tech in Kansas City in the Big 12 Women’s Tournament. His record with games impending is 203-139. He is the second winningest coach in the program’s history. He is a two-time Big 12 Coach of the Year that took over the program in the wake of losing hisbest friend in former coach Kurt Budke and assistant Miranda Serna in a small plane crash when they were on a recruiting trip.  

Trust me, athletic director Chad Weiberg did not want to cut Littell’s tenure as head coach. Weiberg is the product of an athletic and coaching family, but he is also an athletic director. His job is to do the tough things like tell coaches their time at Oklahoma State is done. Littell hit a rough patch this season with players transferring out leaving his squad short-handed. His team is 8-19 and 3-15 in Big 12 play. 

Weiberg shows he can make those tough personnel moves and he begins the process of getting his department back in good graces with some of those groups that keep close eyes on coaching and athletic department personnel rosters. Groups like the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, Women Leaders in College Sports, The Women’s Sports Foundation, and anybody that monitors Title IX in . 

Oklahoma State has no women in head coaching positions. Weiberg’s predecessor, Mike Holder filled multiple positions on the women’s side and everytime with a male. He promoted Littell, brought in Dave Smith and put him over men and women in track and cross country, found Chris Young to head up tennis, hired Kenny Gajewski in softball, hired a former Cowboy golfer in Greg Robertson to coach women’s golf, and approved the switch of Colin Carmichael to head coach as Karen Hancock became an assistant the athletic department’s senior women’s administrator.

There is a very good chance that while Weiberg answered the question in his press conference on Monday about hiring a woman with not wanting to limit his scope in the search, Oklahoma State is almost assured to end up with a woman head coach in women’s basketball.

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Amaka Agugua-Hamilton

Checking candidates there are more than a few to chose from. I don’t see Oklahoma State hiring a power five coach, but likely finding an accomplished mid-to-lower level Division I coach much like OU did last year with Jenny Baranczyk coming from Drake. 

Amaka Agugua-Hamilton is in her third season as head coach at Missouri State. The former assistant at Virginia Commonwealth and Michigan State where she was associate head coach for four seasons, is 72-13 as head coach of the Lady Bears. Her team is 23-6 this season and second in the Missouri Valley.

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Donna Finnie is a native of Scotland.

Donna Finnie is a native of Scotland that played her college basketball in Texas at Lamar University and is in her eighth season as the head coach at Houston Baptist and is the winningest head coach in school history in women’s hoops. She is the former national team head coach of Scotland. 

Tanya Warren is in her fourteenth season as the head coach at University of Northern Iowa and is the dean of women’s basketball coaches in the Missouri Valley Conference. She has taken UNI to a pair of conference titles. This season they are 20-9 as the prepare for Valparaiso in the MVC Tournament. A graduate of Creighton, she has been an assistant at her alma mater and at Missouri.

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Katie Abrahamson-Henderson

Oklahoma State could get really aggressive and go welcome future Big 12 Conference member University of Central Florida and court their head coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson. The 16-year veteran head coach was at Missouri State for five seasons and won three Missouri Valley titles and made three NCAA Tournaments. She was at Albany University for five seasons and won five American East Tournament Championships and made five NCAA Tournament appearances. At UCF Abrahamson-Henderson has made two NCAA appearances and two WNIT appearances. 

Her current team is 23-3 and just ended Tulsa’s season with a 69-54 win in the American Athletic Conference Tournament. They are ranked No. 25 in the current women’s AP Top 25.

Those are some of the top candidates out there for Weiberg to contemplate.