The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Department of Intercollegiate Athletics announces on Thursday that is has agreed to a two-year contract extension with women’s basketball head coach Larry Tidwell.
His contract, which already had two seasons remaining, now runs through the 2019-20 season.
“Based on the success of our women’s basketball program over the past three seasons, Coach Tidwell has earned the right to be the highest paid women’s basketball head coach in the Western Athletic Conference, and this contract allows us to achieve that goal,” UTRGV Director of Athletics Chris King said. “Additionally, we are excited to say that this extension guarantees that Coach Tidwell will be our coach for the entirety of our next four-year recruiting class.”
Tidwell’s teams have been the most successful in program history, tying the program wins record in 2013-14 (14) before shattering the record with 19 wins in each of the last two seasons. In 2014-15, UTRGV made its first postseason appearance by going to the WBI. This past season, UTRGV advanced for the WNIT for the first time. After breaking 40 program records and tying 21 more in 2014-15, the team broke 31 records and tied 24 in 2015-16. Overall, UTRGV has gone 52-45 (.536) in three years.
Off the court, the program has recorded more than 3,200 hours of community service while maintaining a cumulative grade point average of nearly 3.0.
Tidwell has broken multiple program coaching records as well, as he ranks first in overall winning percentage (.536), conference winning percentage (.591), conference tournament winning percentage (.571), non-conference winning percentage (.491), overall home winning percentage (.763), overall neutral site winning percentage (.571), conference home winning percentage (.682), conference road winning percentage (.500), non-conference home winning percentage (.875), conference wins (26), conference tournament wins (4), neutral site wins (8), conference home wins (15), and conference road wins (11). He also ranks second in overall wins (52), third in overall home wins (29), overall road wins (14), and non-conference home wins (18), and fourth in non-conference wins (26).
Tidwell is 18 wins away from tying the program record for career wins. Should he get there, Tidwell will become one of two active head coaches to be the winningest head coach at two different NCAA Division I institutions. Tidwell is the winningest head coach in Lamar history while Texas A&M’s Gary Blair is the winningest head coach at both Texas A&M and Arkansas.
“I appreciate the commitment by UTRGV and the fact that the administration appreciates what we’re doing with the women’s basketball program,” Tidwell said. “But in essence, this contract represents the great play by the players over the last three years. Our players have represented this university, their families and this team exceptionally well. We do it with a sense that we are part of the Valley, and we’re very proud of that. We’ve also had great coaching from my assistants and I can’t thank them enough for helping with this.”
http://goutrgv.com/news/2016/4/21/womens-basketball-utrgv-athletics-and-coach-tidwell-agree-to-two-year-contract-extension-through-2020.aspx
