MINNEAPOLIS — When Sue Hen was appointed because the Managing Director for the U.S. ladies’s nationwide basketball crew earlier this month, Cheryl Reeve reached out to congratulate her.
Reeve, the 58-year-old longtime coach of the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, coached Group USA to its tenth Olympic gold medal final summer season in Paris, France.
“I used to be thrilled for USA Basketball to nominate Sue to the place, and I believed the timing of it was nice,” Reeve stated final week earlier than the Lynx performed the Dallas Wings. “The evolution — you already know, it’s exhausting to vary one thing. It’s been so profitable for therefore a few years. And so, I give management, Common (Martin) Dempsey, (CEO) Jim Tooley, simply a variety of credit score for that call.”
However past that, Reeve says she and Hen haven’t talked about the rest, equivalent to, if Reeve will proceed to be the pinnacle coach of the senior nationwide crew.
“I congratulated Sue, and that’s been the extent of our dialog,” Reeve stated when requested by SB Nation if she deliberate to teach the crew in 2026 or 2028.
And so, with the FIBA World Cup approaching in a couple of yr, and the subsequent Summer season Video games on U.S. soil looming in 2028, it’s unclear who the subsequent coach of the extremely profitable U.S. ladies’s basketball crew will probably be.
At her introductory press convention on Could 8, Hen — who gained 5 Olympic gold medals whereas representing Group USA as a participant — recognized “selecting a coach” for the 2026 World Cup in Berlin as one in all her prime priorities.
“There’s no particular timeline on that, however clearly that’s tremendous essential,” Hen stated. “After which as soon as that’s performed, selecting the bigger workers.”
Primarily based on the historical past of the U.S. nationwide crew, it wouldn’t be beautiful if Reeve doesn’t proceed on as head coach. Actually, it could solely be stunning if she is certainly standing on the sidelines in Los Angeles when the Summer season Video games start in 2028. Starting with Billy Moore within the Seventies, solely one of many 11 coaches to steer the nationwide crew have coached in a number of Olympics: Geno Auriemma. Although, it’s value noting that Pat Summitt would have possible been the coach for the 1980 crew too had the U.S. not withdrawn from the video games in Moscow. As an alternative, her lone Olympic teaching stint got here in 1984, when the U.S. gained the gold for the primary time.
Each different coach that has led the nationwide crew has usually coached for only one cycle that features a World Cup and an Olympics. That group contains Kay Yow, Theresa Grentz, Tara VanDerveer, Nell Fortner, Van Chancellor, Anne Donovan and Daybreak Staley.
Ought to Reeve stay the coach, she would be part of Auriemma as the one two folks to teach the ladies’s nationwide crew in a number of Olympics.
Tooley informed the Related Press that Hen’s time period for managing director is for 4 years. She’ll have a significant say in what the roster seems to be like and who the coach is for the World Cup and Olympics.
“After all I’ve began to consider it, jotting some names down right here and there,” Hen informed the AP of selecting the subsequent coach. “It’s the primary precedence for sure. There are such a lot of certified coaches in school and the WNBA.”
Ought to Hen not resolve to retain Reeve because the coach of the nationwide crew, one potential and seemingly logical successor could possibly be Kara Lawson.
The top coach of the Duke Blue Devils has a protracted historical past with and deep ties to Group USA. She gained a gold medal as a participant in 2008 — taking part in alongside Hen — and coached the People to an Olympic gold in 3×3 basketball on the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. Lawson was additionally an assistant coach on Reeve’s Group USA workers final summer season and was the lead scout for the gold medal sport in opposition to France. Moreover, she has already been appointed as the pinnacle coach of Group USA for the FIBA AmeriCup this summer season in Chile.
Lawson coached the Blue Devils to an ACC Championship this season, her fifth at Duke, and guided the crew to its first Elite Eight look since 2013. It’s additionally value noting that Duke athletic director Nina King was appointed to the USA Basketball Board of Administrators for a time period that runs via 2028.
The subsequent FIBA Ladies’s World Cup begins on Sept. 4, 2026, in Berlin, Germany.
