Veteran college coach Mary Wooley has been named an assistant coach for the Loyola University Maryland women’s basketball team, the program’s head coach Joe Logan announced today.
Wooley returns to the East Coast where she played at the University of South Carolina Aiken and coached at Temple University before moving on to the University of Southern California and the University of Hawai’i.
“Mary is a proven winner; she has helped every program she has been a part of excel in the classroom, on the court and in the community,” Logan said. “I know Mary will be an excellent role model for our players on and off the court, and we are extremely excited to welcome Mary and her family to Loyola.”
Most recently, Wooley was a member of the Rainbow Wahine staff as an assistant coach in 2012-2013 and for the last three seasons as the program’s associate head coach.
Wooley helped Hawai’i reach postseason play all four years she was in Honolulu, including a 2016 berth in the NCAA Tournament – the school’s first since 1998 – after the Rainbow Wahine won the Big West Conference Tournament.
“Words cannot express what Coach Wooley has meant to me and to this program,” said Hawai’i head coach Laura Beeman upon Wooley’s departure. “I can say with no hesitation that Rainbow Wahine basketball is better today because of Mary, her investment to the players, her tireless work ethic and her support of me. I am incredibly grateful to Mary and excited for her future and thrilled she will be closer to family. Our loss is their gain.”
During her time at Hawai’i, the Rainbow Wahine went 61-34 (.642) overall and 49-17 (.742) in conference action. She coached eight players who earned All-Big West honors, four-straight Big West Sixth Player of the Year award winners and three 1,000-point scorers. Prior to the Wooley and the current Hawai’i coaching staff, the Rainbow Wahine had logged just one winning season in the last decade, not reached the postseason since 2001.
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Teams she has been associated with have also excelled in the classroom. Dating to her tenure as an assistant at Southern California, seven-straight teams she has coached have posted grade-point averages of 3.0 or higher.
Recently, Loyola’s women’s basketball team was recognized by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) for having the ninth-best GPA in all of NCAA Division I.
Wooley moved to the Aloha State as a part of Beeman’s first coaching staff after the pair were a part of the staff at Southern California.
In Los Angeles, Wooley aided the Women of Troy to a 61-37 (.622) overall record and 34-20 (.629) in Pac-12 Conference action from 2009-2012. The program had four All-Pac-12 honorees and was the 2010 WNIT Runner-Up.
After graduating from South Carolina Aiken in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts in experimental psychology, Wooley entered collegiate coaching at Temple University under the Owls’ then-head coach Dawn Staley. Wooley served a graduate externship with the women’s basketball program, helping the Owls reach three NCAA Tournaments and compile a 73-22 (.768) overall record and 42-6 (.875) mark in the Atlantic-10 Conference from 2003-2006.
After completing her Master’s of Education in counseling psychology and starting coursework for her Ph.D. at Temple, Wooley became Staley’s director of women’s basketball operations, a position she held from 2006-2009. During that stretch, the Owls also went to three NCAA Tournaments, posted a 48-31 (.607) overall mark and a 36-6 (.857) record in the A-10.
Wooley was a four-year letterwinner at NCAA Division II school South Carolina Aiken. As a forward, she led the Pacers to a its first-ever Peach Belt Conference title and NCAA Division II Tournament appearance in 2002. She left the program fifth all-time in blocked shots (52).
Wooley is married to Courtney Robinson, and the couple has a son, Hayes Bishop.
http://www.loyolagreyhounds.com/sports/w-baskbl/spec-rel/090816aaa.html
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