After just three seasons on the job in Provo, Utah, BYU is moving on from Amber Whiting. The Cougars officially announced on Saturday afternoon that they are “parting ways.”
Whiting had zero college coaching experience before being hired by BYU, her alma mater, in 2022. She had been a high school coach, leading Burley High School in Idaho to a state championship. That success never really translated to college though. In one season in the WAC and two in the Big 12, Whiting never had a winning record in conference play and went 45-51 overall.
This season, BYU went 4-14 in Big 12 play, finishing 14th in a 16-team league.
The previous coach at BYU was Jeff Judkins, who led the Cougars from 2001 up to his retirement after the 2021-22 season. BYU went to 11 NCAA Tournaments under his watch and twice went to the Sweet 16. After a year off, he is now an assistant at Utah.
Filling this job at BYU will be difficult for a few reasons.
First, it’s unclear how much the university and its boosters are willing to rally around the women’s basketball program with the investment it might take to compete in the upper class of the Big 12. It’s obvious that support is there for men’s basketball — where top recruit AJ Dybantsa committed to the Cougars for a reportedly incredibly lucrative NIL package. The questions about money regarding BYU’s women’s basketball program aren’t just about NIL though. Will the Cougars give this sport any slice of the revenue sharing pie once the House settlement goes through? If so, how substantial will it be?
The second obstacle is finding a coach who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which BYU is the flagship higher education institution of. It’s part of the reason why BYU had to turn to a high school coach the last time it had an opening.
BYU has said publicly that coaches in the athletic department do not need to be LDS members. That came in a press release in 2021 when the Cougars promoted Diljeet Taylor to the head job of the women’s cross country team. The university said, in part: “While in the past head coaches throughout BYU Athletics have often been members of the church, it has been a practice but not a policy.”
But of the head coaches of varsity sports that BYU sponsors, Taylor has been the lone outlier recently. And her husband is an LDS member.
“It’s a tough gig and that limits the candidate pool,” a longtime assistant coach told SB Nation.
“BYU is so unique, I’ve got zero clue what they might do,” one agent added.
What’s also unclear about this coaching search is who is running it. Longtime BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe announced last month that he is retiring at the end of the 2024-25 sports season and his replacement hasn’t yet been selected, at least not publicly. Will this hire be Holmoe’s, or will it fall to one of his lieutenants, like deputy athletic director Brian Santiago, or senior associate AD and senior woman administrator Liz Darger?
Whoever the next BYU coach is, one of the top priorities is clear: The Cougars have to figure out how to retain Delaney Gibb, who blossomed into one of the sport’s top freshmen this season. Gibb, a 5-foot-10 guard from Canada, was named Big 12 Freshman of the Year. Her 17.4 points per game were the fourth-most amongst all freshmen nationally, and she was one of just nine players to average at least 17 points, five rebounds and four assists per game. Among that group, none shot better from 3-point land than Gibb’s 39.5 percent.
All that said, here’s a handful of coaches who might make sense for the BYU job.
Adam Wardenburg
Before he jumped back into Division I coaching, Wardenburg was the head coach of the men’s and women’s teams, in separate stints, at Division III Southern Virginia University, which – while not officially affiliated – embraces and aligns itself with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In his lone season as the women’s head coach there, he was named D3hoops.com Mid-Atlantic Coach of the Year after leading the team to a 21-6 record – the program’s best season ever. Wardenburg was the associate head coach at Utah Valley in the 2023-24 season, then became the associate head coach at the Air Force Academy this past year. He’s also had past stops at Southern Idaho and Utah State, the latter of which is his alma mater. Wardenburg fits the bill as someone who is familiar with Utah and LDS culture.
Morgan Bailey
Perhaps one of the best BYU players ever, Bailey was the WCC Player of the Year for the Cougars in 2015 and helped them go to a Sweet 16 in 2014. After a brief stint as a professional player overseas, she’s become a coach with stops as an assistant exclusively in the state of Utah: Snow College, Southern Utah, Utah Valley, BYU and now the University of Utah. Bailey helped Utah Valley make its first NCAA Tournament ever in 2021, and the Utes are eyeing a March Madness berth this year as well. BYU could do worse than hiring Bailey, an alum with legitimate college coaching experience.
Lee Cummard
BYU may keep its search in-house and give Cummard, a former decorated men’s player for the Cougars – he was the Mountain West Player of the Year in 2008 – a shot at the head job. Cummard spent a season coaching with the BYU men in 2018-19, but has been a women’s assistant ever since, first under Judkins and then getting a promotion to associate head coach under Whiting. As an acting head coach for a brief stint under Judkins, Cummard went 3-0 with impressive victories over Utah State, No. 17 Florida State and No. 22 West Virginia. Cummard graduated from BYU in 2009 and served a mission for the LDS.
