Rutgers is now in the market for a new women's basketball coach after Hall of Famer C.Vivian Stringer called it career on Saturday morning.
In her 50 years as a head coach, Stringer accumulated 1,055 wins, four Final Four appearances with three different schools (Cheyney, Iowa and Rutgers) and led her teams to 28 total NCAA Tournament berths.
Now with that being said, whoever replaces Stringer will have some big shoes to fill. Here is a look at an early list of candidates who may turn out to be the Scarlet Knights newest head coach.
WHY RUTGERS? For starters she has a very similar resume to another certain basketball coach at Rutgers in Steve Pikiell, as she played her college ball at Connecticut and has a ton of connections to the New England area. Not to mention Berube is a proven winner, leading Tufts University to multiple DIII Championship games and she has already won two Ivy League regular season titles in her four years as head coach. On top of all that, she's recruited very well at Princeton, most recently landing the No. 43 and 46 overall recruits in the class of 2022.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:
2000–2002: Providence (assistant)
2002–2019: Tufts
2019–present: Princeton
CHRIS DAILEY -- UCONN ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH
WHY RUTGERS? Dailey is a New Brunswick, New Jersey native, played hercollegiate ball at Rutgers (1978-82) and even spent time on the banks as an assistant coach for a few years (1983-85) as well.
The issue here would be convincing Dailey to leave UConn, a school where she been an assistant coach at UConn since 1985. However, she has racked up quite the list of accomplishments since joining the Huskies, as she helped lead the program to eleven national titles, 25 conference regular season titles, and 24 conference tournament championships.
It's hard to argue that this one wouldn't be a home run of a hire, as Dailey is a New Jersey native, Rutgers alum and would be coming from argaubly the best women's basketball program ever.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:
1982-1983: Cornell (Asst.)
1983-1985: Rutgers (Asst.)
1985-1988: Connecticut (Asst.)
1988–PRESENT: Connecticut (Assoc. HC)
CHELSEA NEWTON -- TEXAS A&M ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH
WHY RUTGERS? Newton checks off a lot of boxes right away. She has a connectiion to Rutgers as she is an alum who played under coach Stringer from 2000-05, went on to be drafted and played a few years in the WNBA and has coaching experience at Rutgers and various SEC schools.
Now the only knocks on Newton would be her lack of head coaching experience and the fact that she was just hired by Texas A&M on April 20th. So there is a little bit of risk there, but she is well known as a pretty darn good recruiter, so if she can surround herself with some experienced assistants then there is no reason why she can't be successful.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:
2006-07: Rutgers (Dir. of Player Development)
2010-15: Rutgers (Asst.)
2015-22: Georgia (Asst.)
2022-PRESENT: Texas A&M (Assoc. HC)
JOLETTE LAW -- SOUTH CAROLINA ASSISTANT COACH
WHY RUTGERS? The current Gamecocks assistant coach is fresh off a National Championship, hails from the Stringer coaching tree as she played for her at Iowa and spent 13 years at Rutgers as both an assistant coach and associate head coach.
Not to mention she has previous Big Ten coaching experience, as Law was the head coach of Illinois from 2007-12, where she produceed a 20 win season in year one and a 19 win season in year three. However he teams struggled in years four and five, so Law was eventually let go by the school.
Law is very well known as a top tier recruiter as she helped the Gamecocks finish with four top-three ranked recruiting classes, including the No. 1 ranked classes in both 2019 and 2021.
South Carolina just won the National Championship.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:
1994-1995: Ball State (Asst.)
1995-2003: Rutgers (Asst.)
2003-2007: Rutgers (Assoc. HC)
2007-2012: Illinois (HC)
2012-2017: Tennessee (Asst.)
2017-PRESENT: South Carolina (Asst.)
CARLENE MITCHELL -- CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE HEAD COACH
WHY RUTGERS? Similar to Newton, this one would be a little tricky as Mitchell was literally just promoted from interim to full time head coach of CSUN this past March.
Now looking at the resume, Mitchell checks a lot of boxes as she spent time at multiple big name programs, including 10 seasons at Rutgers helping to lead the Knights to the nine straight NCAA Tournament berths. Plus Mitchell also has previous head coaching experience at UC-Santa Barara where she led the Gauchos to the NCAAs in year one and most recently led CSun as the interim head coach this past season.
Along with her college experience, Mitchell also spent time as a coach in both the WNBA as an assistant coach and WKBL (Women's Korean Basketball League) as the team's technical advisor.
Put together Mitchell's resume, her connection to Rutgers plus her WNBA ties and Mitchell could make for an intriguing name to become the program's next head coach.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:
1997: Missouri-Kansas City (GA)
1998-99: Western Illinois (Asst.)
2000-01: Oklahoma State (Asst./Dir. of Recruiting)
2002-08: Rutgers (Asst.)
2008-11: Rutgers (Assoc. HC)
2011-15: UC-Santa Barbra (HC)
2017: Chicago Sky (Asst.)
2018-2019: Bucheon Hana 1Q -- WKBL (Technical Advisor)
2021-PRESENT: California State University -- Northridge (HC)
TIM EATMAN -- RUTGERS ASSOC. HEAD COACH
WHY RUTGERS? Eatman took over the job last year and offers some familiarity, as he has been with the program since 2015. Not to mention he was also known as a pretty darn good recruiter and played a big role in helping lead Rutgers to five different 20+ win seasons during his time on the banks.
Now he struggled this past season as the interim. head coach for a season, but maybe with a chance to run the show completely his way things could turn out differently. This one is likelt a long shot, but Eatman makes the board the none the less.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:
1988-90: Talladega College
1990-92: Mississippi State (Asst.)
1992-93: Houston (Asst.)
1994-95: Iowa (Asst.)
1996-98: Kansas (Asst.)
1998-02: Illinois-Chicago (HC)
2002-04: Kansas (Asst.)
2004-07: Louisville (Asst.)
2007-11: Arkansas (Assoc.HC)
2011-12: Boston College (Asst./Interim HC)
2013-14: Northeastern
2014-15: Rhode Island (Asst.)
2015-2018: Rutgers (Asst.)
2019-2021: Rutgers (Assoc. HC/Recruiting Coordinator)
2022: Rutgers (Acting HC)
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