Tricia Cullop: How Miami's eighth Women's Basketball Head Coach Reached this Point

Tricia Cullop was named the eighth women's basketball coach at the University of Miami on April 5, 2024. She spent the last 16 seasons as the head coach at the University of Toledo. She compiled a record of 353-169 during that time.

A six-time Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year, Cullop coached the Rockets to five regular season MAC championships and 11 postseason berths, including two trips to the NCAA Tournament. Cullop spent eight seasons as the head coach of the University of Evansville before joining Toledo.

Cullop is highly respected in college basketball circles and she served as the President of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 membership years. In 2022, she received the WBCA Carol Eckman Integrity in Coaching Award, which is a testament to her high character on and off the court.

As the head coach of Toledo, Cullop earned the last three MAC Coach of the Year awards as the Rockets won three straight conference regular season crowns and 85 games in total. In 2023-24, the Rockets went 15-1 at home and 28-6 overall, as they averaged 4,351 fans at home, tops in the MAC.

In 2022-23, Cullop's team had 29 victories and earned the program's first NCAA Tournament win in 27 years with an upset of the fifth-seeded Iowa State Cyclones before losing to fourth-seeded Tennessee. In 2021-22, the Rockets went 29-6, advancing to the WNIT quarterfinals.

Before that, the Rockets won the WNIT, the first major postseason tournament title ever won by a MAC program. In 2017, Toledo made its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 16 seasons.

In the 2023 fall semester, six student-athletes earned a 4.0 GPA to help the program earn a 3.84 cumulative GPA, the best in program history.

A Bicknell, Indiana native, Cullop received a bachelor's degree in communications from Purdue. Under former Miami head coach Lin Dunn, she was a team captain for the Boilermakers and a three-time academic All-Big Ten selection. Cullop was honored as the Purdue Mortar Board Female Student-Athlete of the Year in 1993 and inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018.

Cullop's Track Record:

Career Record: 476-279 (24 seasons)
10 20-win seasons
12 postseason appearances (11 Toledo, 1 Evansville)
Winningest coach in Toledo history
Six-time MAC Coach of the Year
2008 Missouri Valley Coach of the Year
Five MAC regular season titles
Two-Time WBCA President
2022 WBCA Carol Eckman Integrity in Coaching Award
Assistant coach at Radford, Long Beach State and Xavier
Team captain and three-time Academic All-Big Ten selection at Purdue
2018 Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame inductee

Stops Along her Coaching Career

Miami (Fla.) (Head Coach), 2024-Present
Toledo (Head Coach), 2008-24
Evansville (Head Coach), 2000-08
Xavier (Assistant Coach), 1996-00
Long Beach State (Assistant Coach), 1994-96
Radford (Assistant Coach), 1993-94