Northwestern Women's Basketball Hires New Head Coach After Joe McKeown Retirement
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The Northwestern University Wildcats women's basketball program has announced its seventh head coach following the retirement of longtime leader Joe McKeown.
A three-time Atlantic Ten Conference Coach of the Year for George Washington and the 2020 Big Ten Coach of the Year with Northwestern, McKeown enjoyed a stellar 40-year head coaching career, which kicked off with a three-year stint at New Mexico State.
He boasted a 785-453 overall record, appearing in the NCAA Tournament 19 times. His teams also won four conference tournament championships.
During his 18 seasons at Northwestern, he posted a 276-279 overall record, leading the Wildcats to a pair of NCAA Tournament berths in 2014-15 and 2020-21.
Northwestern's New Head Coach Is....
Now, Northwestern is bringing aboard ex-Princeton Tigers head coach Carla Berube. Since 2019, she had guided Princeton to five March Madness runs, including a pair of second-round appearances, plus nine combined regular season and tournament Ivy League titles.
“I’m incredibly honored to join the women’s basketball program at Northwestern University,” Berube said through a school press statement. “This is a place where academic and athletic excellence go hand in hand, and I’m excited to build a championship culture that reflects that standard. Competing in the Big Ten Conference requires toughness, discipline, and a relentless commitment to growth. We are going to embrace that challenge and build a team that competes with pride and goes to battle for one another every night.”
Berube, 50, posted a 384-96 head coaching record (105-20 inter-conference) while serving as the head coach at Tufts, plus a 147-29 record at Princeton.
As a player, Berube won a collegiate title with the University of Connecticut Huskies in 1995.
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An Evanston native, Alex Kirschenbaum is also a proud Northwestern alum. He has written for Bleacher Nation, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Hoops Rumors, Trailers From Hell, Men's Journal, and Bulls fan sites Blog-A-Bull and Pippen Ain't Easy, among others. Alex knows Zach Collins has given the Bulls some good years, but he'll never forgive the then-Gonzaga center for that very obvious goaltend against the Wildcats during the second round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament.