Illinois returns over 80 percent of their scoring next season. Now, with the addition of a legitimate post defender, Illinois will not be outsized by bigger teams in the Big Ten.
Shauna Green was named the 10th head coach of the Fighting Illini women’s basketball program history on Monday, March 21, 2022. She wrapped up her second year in the Orange and Blue with the 2023-24 campaign.
Across her time at Illinois, Green has led the Illini to a 41-25 record, including a 19-17 mark in Big Ten play. Including her time as the head coach at Dayton, Green owns a 168-75 record as a Division I coach. When adding in her two seasons as the head coach at Loras College (DIII), Green owns a 197-100 head coaching record across her career. Dating back to her second season at Loras, Green has led her squads to nine consecutive winning seasons. She has guided her teams to a combined five NCAA Tournaments and three WBIT/WNIT appearances. Green’s squads have won seven conference championships (five regular season, two tournament) and the 2024 WBIT championship.
In two years under Green, the Illinois women’s basketball team has registered 41 wins, the first-ever postseason championship in program history (2024 WBIT), and back-to-back top-5 season attendances in State Farm Center. Over the last two seasons, Illinois has delivered two upsets of AP Top-15 ranked teams: No. 12 Iowa (1/1/23) and No. 14 Indiana (2/19/24).
Year two at Illinois under Green saw the Fighting Illini make back-to-back postseason appearances for the first time since the 2006-07 and 2007-08 campaigns as Illinois earned an at-large bid into the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (second NCAA-sponsored postseason tournament behind the NCAA Tournament). Green led the squad to a WBIT championship with five straight wins to close the season with a 19-15 overall record. Makira Cook was named the WBIT’s Most Outstanding Player, while Kendall Bostic and Genesis Bryant joined her on the All-Tournament Team.
Green is the first coach in Illinois women’s basketball history to lead the Illini to winning seasons in their first two years at Illinois. She also secured six postseason wins (Big Ten Tournament included) in her first two campaigns at Illinois, more than any previous coach in their first two seasons at the helm. Illinois’ 19 Big Ten regular-season victories over Green’s first two seasons are the program’s most over a two-year span since the 1999-2000 and 2000-01 campaigns, when Illinois totaled 20 conference wins under Hall of Fame coach Theresa Grentz.
The Illini secured their first back-to-back .500 seasons since the 2006-07 and 2007-08 campaigns.
In 2023-24, Illinois set the program’s single-season team free-throw percentage record, connecting on 434-of-546 attempts for a 79.5% rate from the line. The mark led the Big Ten and ranked sixth in the NCAA.
Year one at Illinois saw Green lead the program to new heights both on and off the court. The Illini finished 22-10 (11-7 B1G) and returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 20 seasons. Illinois found itself ranked in the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2000 and would appear in four polls, ranking as high as No. 21. Green is the only Illini head coach to have a team ranked in their first season at UI.
Green was one of 10 WBCA NCAA Division I National Coach of the Year finalists in 2022-23. Throughout the season, Green was tabbed ESPN Coach of the Week (Dec. 19, 2022) and Just Women’s Sports’ Midseason NCAA Coach of the Year Frontrunner (Jan. 13, 2023) while also being listed on the Naismith Women’s Coach of the Year Late Season Watch List (Feb. 15, 2023).
Across its 15 home games during the 2022-23 season, Illinois Women’s Basketball saw 52,295 fans fill State Farm Center en route to a 12-3 home record. That total attendance ranks fifth in program history and makes Green the only head coach to bring in 50,000 or more fans in her first season with the Illini.
With five returners from the 2021-22 Illinois squad that posted a 7-20 record, Green delivered the largest turnaround in program history and one of the top all-time in Big Ten history. The 15-win improvement from the previous season’s 7-20 campaign set a new best turnaround in program history and ranks third best in Big Ten history. In league play, Illinois tallied 10 more wins than the 2021-22 mark (1-13), the best turnaround in program history, which tied for the best all-time in the Big Ten.
Green arrived at Illinois following six successful seasons as the head coach at the University of Dayton, where her teams captured five Atlantic 10 regular-season championships and qualified each year of her tenure for postseason play, including four appearances in the NCAA Tournament. During the 2021-22 season, the three-time Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year led the Flyers to the Atlantic 10 championship and an opening-round victory in the NCAA Tournament, finishing the season with a final record of 26-6.
Green took over the Illini program after compiling a record of 127-50 (.718) with the Flyers, and 156-75 (.675) overall, which includes two seasons at Loras College. Previously, Green was an assistant coach at Dayton. She also had assistant coaching stints at Northwestern and Providence.
In 2021-22, the Flyers were Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season champions and advanced to the championship game of the conference tournament, compiling a final record of 14-1 in league play and 26-6 overall. Dayton was the final at-large team selected to the NCAA Tournament field and defeated DePaul, 88-57, in a First Four game, before being eliminated by Georgia on Friday.
In Green’s six years at Dayton, the Flyers qualified for the NCAA Tournament four times and twice for the WNIT. Her teams won at least 22 games in four of the six seasons, including a 22-10 record in 2017, 23-7 in 2018, a 25-8 mark in 2020 (the NCAA Tournament was canceled due to COVID-19), and 26-6 in 2022.
During the shortened season in 2020-21, the Flyers clinched the A-10 regular-season title after going 12-1 in conference play and earning the top seed in the Atlantic 10 Championship Tournament. The Flyers finished 14-5 overall after advancing to the WNIT. In 2019-20, Green earned her second Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year honor after leading the Flyers to both the regular-season and tournament titles, earning the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and finishing the year at 25-8.
Green earned her first Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year honor in 2018 after Dayton swept the regular-season and tournament championships, finishing with a 23-7 record overall and 15-1 in the A-10. She led the Flyers to the WNIT in 2019 with a 17-14 overall record.
In Green’s first year at the helm of the Flyers in 2017, she made Dayton women’s basketball history by guiding UD to its first-ever sweep of regular-season and tournament titles in the Atlantic 10 Conference. She received WBCA National Rookie Coach of the Year honors after leading the Flyers to a 22-10 overall record and 13-3 A-10 mark, leading to a berth in the NCAA Tournament. That season ended in a hard-fought loss to No. 5 seed and eight-time national champion Tennessee.
A native of Clinton, Iowa, Green began her coaching career as a head coach at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, in 2006 and 2007, when she compiled a record of 29-25. Green gained Big Ten experience in 2016 as an assistant at Northwestern prior to being named head coach at Dayton before the 2016-17 season, where she had been an assistant coach from 2013-15. The Flyers advanced to the NCAA Tournament all three years Green was an assistant, including a memorable run to the 2015 NCAA Elite Eight. She also served as an assistant at Providence College from 2008-12 before her move to Dayton.
A 2002 graduate of Canisius College, Green received a degree in business marketing. While at Canisius, the former Shauna Geronzin became one of the greatest basketball players in Griffins’ history. A four-time letterwinner from 1998-2002, Green earned All-Conference honors each year, including three times being selected First-Team All-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. She is the school’s all-time leading scorer, with 2,012 points, and she remains second in career rebounding. Green was the Canisius Female Athlete of the Year in 2002 and, in 2012, was inducted into the Canisius College Sports Hall of Fame.
Green later earned a master’s degree in physical education with an emphasis in athletic administration from Loras. She and her husband, Andy, have one son, Matteo.
