New Arizona State women’s basketball coach Molly Miller, right, walks with athletic director Graham Rossini before her introductory press conference in Tempe Wednesday. (Photo by Samuel Nute/Cronkite News)
TEMPE – Women’s college basketball thrived in the Valley during the 2024-25 season, but not at Arizona State. While the Sun Devils struggled, their crosstown counterparts, Grand Canyon, made headlines under coach Molly Miller. The Lopes’ 32-3 season included a 30-game win streak, a WAC tournament championship and an NCAA tournament berth.
Following GCU’s first-round loss to Baylor in the NCAA Women’s Tournament, ASU athletic director Graham Rossini shoved his chips to the middle of the table to go all in and hire Miller, who was introduced Wednesday.
“We are beyond thrilled to welcome a proven and dynamic leader to the Sun Devil family today,” Rossini said. “The excitement around coach Miller and the direction of our program is second to none.”
Miller took over at GCU in 2020 after coaching her alma mater, Drury, to the NCAA Division II tournament Final Four. She proved the ability to turn around a program in her second season when the Lopes finished with GCU’s most wins at the time (22). She followed that up with a 24-win season in 2023-24.
This season, the hoops world was put on notice as the Lopes rattled off 30 straight victories and turned home games in front of their rowdy crowd known as the Havocs into energetic parties.
Molly Miller, right, accompanied by ASU president Michael Crow, said “it was the vision that sold me” when asked why she decided to come to Tempe. (Photo by Samuel Nute/Cronkite News)
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Valley, Arizona State, in its Big 12 debut, finished the season 10-22 – the program’s fourth losing season in a row. The Sun Devils have not made a NCAA Women’s Tournament appearance since 2019. It’s a culture Rossini and ASU president Dr. Michael Crow hope to change with Miller’s hiring.
“My hope is that coach Miller can return ASU women’s basketball to the highest level of competitiveness possible at a moment when women’s basketball is taking off like a rocket,” Crow said. “I am all in for you to be as successful as possible.”
Miller faced a tough decision to leave GCU and a passionate basketball fan base after the historic season, but ultimately Rossini’s vision convinced her to trade in the purple and white for the maroon and gold.
“It was the vision that sold me,” Miller said. “I was going to be pretty picky for my next step if I was blessed to have one, and it was the commitment to athletics and women’s basketball that really made it clear that I belonged here.”
Rebuilding the Sun Devils into a winning program won’t be easy, but it is evident Miller has a vision, personality and perseverance to succeed. She has taken inspiration from a quote that ASU football coach Kenny Dillingham uttered before his Sun Devils shocked the world by improving from 3-9 to 11-3 and winning the Big 12 championship.
“A sailboat doesn’t sail on yesterday’s wind,” Miller recalled Dillingham saying. “I started thinking about the sailboat theme, and I came up with, when I am trying to revive a program and generate excitement, when there is no wind in your sail, row. And we’re going to row. I am going to get a staff here, we’re going to hit the ground running, we’re going to work hard and we’re going to row.”
The Drury and GCU coaching jobs led Miller to secure the Sun Devils job. The lessons she took from the NCAA tournament experience will help her keep the gig.
“I thought that was just a great first glimpse of how I need to recruit, what the level is, does the style of play work with that,” Miller said. “That was a blessing for me to not only be in the tournament and experience it, but really seeing the top of the conference and how they operate and work and what I need to do to plan for the future.”
Molly Miller, left, poses with former Arizona State women’s basketball coach Charli Turner Thorne, who won 488 games in 25 seasons with the Sun Devils. (Photo by Samuel Nute/Cronkite News)
Miller is no stranger to building a roster through the transfer portal, as her 30-win Lopes team from this season included 13 transfer students. She’s already looking into recruiting players who can serve as building blocks for her new program’s culture.
“At 9 p.m. last night, security tried to kick me out of my office,” Miller said. “We’re just burning the midnight oil because that’s the day we live in with the portal, and we are hitting the ground running.”
Miller expressed that her top priority is to recruit players from the Grand Canyon State. Former ASU women’s basketball coach Natasha Adair only rostered two players from Arizona last season.
“We’ve got to keep good Arizona players here,” Miller said. “I am going to recruit in the backyard first, and if they’re good enough to play at this level we’re going to recruit them and we’re going to recruit them early.”
Miller wants to transfer her passion for the game from Global Credit Union Arena to Desert Financial Arena. She hopes the ASU student population buys into her and women’s basketball to create a special environment that will motivate her players.
“Let’s go!” Miller said. “You are going to be my people, I want to rally and do a little huddle jump with you after games, I want to meet you before games, I want to invite you into practices and I want you to feel ownership and like you’re a part of this.”
