UCF has named Katie Abrahamson-Henderson its new women’s basketball coach, replacing Joi Williams after a disappointing 2016 season.
Abrahamson-Henderson was the coach at Albany where she led the team to five 20-win seasons and five straight NCAA Tournament appearances in six seasons. She amassed a 144-46 record in six years at Albany. That includes a win over Florida as a 12-seed in the NCAA Tournament this year.
“We’re proud to welcome Coach Abrahamson-Henderson and her family to UCF,” UCF athletic Director Danny White said in a press release. “I’m confident in Katie’s ability to be a wonderful leader for our women’s basketball student-athletes. She quickly stood out as we were going through the search process. After reviewing her credentials and speaking to her, it became very clear to me that Coach Abrahamson-Henderson is the right leader at the right time for UCF women’s basketball. That feeling was further confirmed after speaking to numerous people about her. She has been a winner as a player and as a coach. We look forward to her bringing that experience to our program. “This was a quick, but thorough search,” White added. “I have the members of my executive team and our search committee to thank for that. Their expertise was crucial to helping us bring Coach Abrahamson-Henderson to Orlando.”
Abrahamson-Henderson has been coaching since 1990 including a previous head coaching stint at Missouri State where she went 95-61 with three NCAA Tournament appearances and the 2005 Women’s NIT championship. She has also served as an associate head coach at Indiana and Michigan State.
She will have her work cut out for at UCF to bring the program back up — in the conference that includes UConn at that.
The Knights went 7-23 last year and 9-21 the year before. The team has not won 15 games in a season since 2013 and have not finished better than .500 since 2011.
UCF though has some talent. Zykira Lewis followed a strong freshman campaign with 14.2 points per game to lead UCF last year. She was largely alone though. The Knights relied almost exclusively on her — she was the only player with more than 1000 minutes and the only player with more than 300 field goal attempts, and she had 423.
Abrahamson-Henderson has done well building up smaller programs. The American is a much different animal. But the Knights are certainly a program that could use her kind of touch and development.
With this hire, White has arguably hired a new coach in the three biggest revenue sports on campus. He hired Scott Frost for football and Johnny Dawkins for men’s basketball since taking over as athletic director. The athletic department has already had his influence.
The first two hires certainly generated a ton of excitement. This one should too.
“Coach Abe” certainly has the experience and success to change the program.
