Wake Forest Fires Women’s Basketball Head Coach Jen Hoover

It what seems to be a surprise to pretty much everyone, Wake Forest has decided to fire Women’s Basketball coach Jen Hoover after a 15-16 season in 2021-22.

Hoover finishes her coaching career at Wake Forest as the all-time win's leader with a record of 143-171 overall and 62-124 in the ACC. Though the Deacs went 15-16 this season and finished 11th in the ACC, they are just 1 year removed from their second every NCAA Tournament berth in program history. It should also be noted that they lost 30 points per game from last year’s team when Ivana Raca (All ACC 1st Team) departed to play professionally, and Gina Conti (All-ACC 2nd Team) transferred to UCLA. Replacing that amount of production in one year is not easy.

The timing on this move is kind of baffling to me. If it had happened after the season ended in March, I think most fans would somewhat understand. Waiting until almost midway through May and then making a change seemingly with no warning feels off.

I mean, we’re talking about a Wake Forest basketball legend who is seemingly well liked and absolutely loves the Demon Deacons. On top of that, the Deacs have only been to the NCAA Tournament twice in program history: once when Hoover was playing, and once when she was coaching. If that wasn’t enough to buy her an extra year, it should have at least gotten her some warning of this move—or at the very least not making the move while she is literally at the ACC spring meetings.

Whatever my thoughts about the weirdness of the situation are, the end result is the Wake Forest Women’s Basketball team searching for a new coach for the 2022-23 season. With a coaching change, the deadline for transferring without having to sit out for a season gets extended to July 1st so the women’s team could potentially see plenty of turnover in the next month. I guess we will have to wait and find out.