Crean might not be leaving, but …

[MU Avenue]

... another Marquette coach is pursuing opportunities. See below. ...

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McCallie headed for Duke

Matthew Miller and Geoff Kimmerly
Lansing State Journal

Joanne P. McCallie is leaving as coach of the Michigan State women's basketball program to take over at Duke, less than a month after signing a new contract to coach the Spartans.

"The entire McCallie family is absolutely thrilled about the opportunity to serve at Duke," McCallie said in a release sent by Duke. "This has been a dream job of mine for many years. We cannot wait to meet and get to know a team that we are so very impressed by academically, as well as athletically, and by the way they carry themselves."

Michigan State's players were informed during a team meeting this afternoon. McCallie will be introduced at Duke at 1:30 p.m. Friday.

"I say good luck to her. God bless her," said MSU Trustee George Perles, adding that he didn't think MSU would have trouble attracting another top-notch coach.

"The good news is we've got the best facilities in the world, so we're going to attract great players, and there's a lot of good coaches out there." he said.

McCallie interviewed for Duke's open coaching job earlier this week. Duke associate sports information director Lindy Brown also confirmed that Marquette coach Terri Mitchell interviewed earlier this week. A report in today's Durham Herald-Sun said McCallie and Mitchell were the finalists to replace former coach Gail Goestenkors, who left for Texas after the season.

According to a previous report, California coach Joanne Boyle last week turned down an offer from Duke.

MSU trustee Faylene Owen said she'd only found out about McCallie's departure this morning.

"I'm very surprised," Owen said. "She's done wonderful things with our team."
"I , too, will look forward to hearing some of the details," she added.

Less than a month ago, McCallie signed a new contract with MSU that seemed to squash rumors she'd be leaving for open jobs. That contract, signed March 24, boosted her base salary by nearly $100,000 -- and made her contract worth $500,000 per year and up to $643,000 with incentives.

MSU is 149-75 in McCallie's seven seasons. She is 316-148 during her career, which has also included eight seasons at Maine. The Spartans finished 24-9 this past season and lost to eventual national runner-up Rutgers in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

[BigSky]

Duke is one of the top so many jobs in womens college hoops.  She isn't just shopping around.

[Marquette Fan]

Mitchell was also reported to have been seen by some Michigan players on the Michigan campus for an interview.  Michigan recently hired UWGB coach Kevin Borseth.  There are still 3 premiere women's bball openings - Penn State, Kentucky (SEC is the top women's bball conference by far) and Michigan State.  This is not the year to have to find a new women's bball coach - there have been a ton of openings this offseason so a lot of premiere candidates are off the market.

[OneMadWarrior]

Actually I would think the ACC was the premier women's conference, not the SEC. No  one cares about women's ball at Kentucky. The Big East is up there as well. Mitchell can leave if she wants. I don't know how much it will really affect MU. Not that I care about women's ball that much anyway.

[muwarrior87]

Mitchell is a great coach and I would not want to see her leave. She is well liked by the student body that does attend the games and is a very good coach overall. What she has done for the women's program is very good. For home games, she's out talking to the students seeing how excited they are for the game and trying to give them extra motivation to be as obnoxious as possible. She's also the winningest coach in Marquette women's bball history and has led the team to many a post season. While the women's program does not bring in the attention of the men's program, they did sell out the Al when UCONN came to town and finished very stronly the past few seasons in the Big East. She would definitely be a big loss to the women's bball program here at MU.