Connecticut Sun’s Stephanie White Named WNBA Coach of the Year

Connecticut Sun head coach Stephanie White has been named WNBA Coach of the Year, the league announced Sunday.

White received 36 out of 60 votes from a panel of sportswriters and broadcasters. Hired by the Sun in November 2022, White led Connecticut to its seventh-straight playoffs and a 27-13 record in her first season with the team.

White earned the honor despite a turbulent offseason. Beyond the departure of former head coach Curt Miller — now with the Los Angeles Sparks — the Sun also lost four-time All-Star Jonquel Jones, who requested a trade in the offseason and joined the New York Liberty. Connecticut also lost two-time All-Star Brionna Jones to a season-ending Achilles injury in June.

The Sun finished third in the league to advance to the playoffs. Leading the way: guard DeWanna Bonner and forward Alyssa Thomas, who averaged 17.4 and 15.5 points per game across 40 games, respectively. (Bonner and Thomas also got engaged in July.)

White earned her first career head-coaching job in 2015, with the Indiana Fever. Then she was Vanderbilt's head coach from 2016-2021 before joining the Sun as head coach last fall.

White is the sixth WNBA head coach that previously played in the league. The percentage of the WNBA's head coaches that are former players has remained at 50%, even as head coaches have been shuffled this season.

The Sun handily defeated the sixth-seeded Minnesota Lynx, 90-60, last Wednesday in the first game of the first round of the WNBA playoffs, but lost to the Lynx 82-75 on Sunday. The two teams will play a third playoff game Wednesday.