Missouri Women’s Basketball Coach Robin Pingeton Deserves Coach of the Year Consideration

Missouri women’s basketball head coach Robin Pingeton has been a winner with everything she’s been associated with. Now the program she’s built up in its sixth season is making history.

Coach Robin Pingeton was fortunate enough to begin her coaching career at the same school she played for, the St. Ambrose University Fighting Bees in Davenport, Iowa. She dominated during her playing career, finishing as the school’s all-time leading scorer. After playing professionally for three seasons, she decided to enter into coaching.

Fans at Missouri are very glad she made this decision.

Pingeton went 23-9 in her first season as the coach of the Fighting Bees. Seven years later, she led her team to its second NAIA Elite Eight under her tenure. Her ability to coach couldn’t possibly go under the radar, so after that second Elite Eight, Pingeton was offered a job at Illinois State in the Missouri Valley Conference.

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She began her career in NCAA Division I women’s college basketball by earning Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year. Another seven seasons after she started this job, she had again taken her team to new heights, finishing as Missouri Valley Conference Champions her last three seasons in a row.

Meanwhile at the University of Missouri, Coach Cindy Stein was on her way out after 12 tough seasons that didn’t see a Big 12 Conference finish better than fourth place. Mike Alden had already made several key hires for coaching positions across the board in his athletic department. But one of the biggest may turn out to be the hiring of Coach Pingeton.

Her start in Columbia wasn’t what she was accustomed to. She was used to winning, and after two years she had an uninspiring conference record of 7-27. But winning was not a part of the Mizzou’s women’s team, so changing the culture of a power program in a major conference wasn’t going to be something that happened overnight.

But her next two years were much more forgiving. Pingeton took her Tigers squad—now in the SEC—to a winning record and postseason play in the women’s NIT, breaking a five year drought. She was beginning to sway a struggling team into a positive direction with the vast experience she has in being a winner.

Then the 2014-15 came, which was special in many ways. One of the most being the Tigers’ win total which was 19, a number achieved in Missouri women’s basketball only two times over the previous 21 seasons, an amazing achievement.

And now in 2015-16, the start to their season has gotten downright historic. Not only that, but for the most part they’ve been blowing teams out of the water. They were tested in a road contest at Boulder against Colorado, but pulled out a huge non-conference road win in that game.

The start is officially at 13-0, clearing their non-conference schedule without a blemish. No team at Missouri has ever had this kind of start, ever.

I’m not suggesting that we just hand the Coach of the Year award to Pingeton at this point, but what I am suggesting is that she is, without question, a legitimate early candidate for NCAA Women’s Coach of the Year. This suggestion isn’t a knee-jerk reaction to a decent start, it’s seeing her whole body of work, knowing that she’s a winner, and that she’s put an incredible amount of effort into turning Missouri around, and it’s paying off because people are beginning to notice.

Coach Pingeton will next coach her squad at Mizzou Arena on Monday at 6:00pm CT against the Tennessee Lady Vols, a game set to be televised nationally on the SEC Network. Tickets are just $5 for the event.