One Year Later: Green Breaks Records, Rewrites History in First Season at Illinois

Exactly one year ago, on March 21, 2022, Shauna Green took a leap of faith, leaving Dayton women's basketball, a program she had guided to five Atlantic 10 regular-season championships and four NCAA Tournament appearances, to move to Champaign to take over an Illinois team that had won seven games the year prior.

Green knew it was not going to be easy or smooth sailing, but she trusted the vision of Director of Athletics Josh Whitman, who visited with Green at her home in Dayton multiple times during the hiring process.

At her introductory press conference on March 22, 2022, one day after being announced as the program's next coach, Green made it clear that the road to rebuilding Illini women’s basketball would not be easy. She needed time and patience to right the ship, and despite taking on a significantly depleted Illinois roster and with the rest of the coaching staff not yet set in stone, Green was confident. 

“If we’re going to do this and build this the right way, it is going to take time,” Green said. “I wish I had a magic switch I could switch on and off and say all of a sudden we’re competing for Big Ten championships. There’s no one in here who wants that more than me. I’m used to winning, I want to win, I came here to win, but we gotta learn how to win before we can win."

One year later, Green has completely transformed Illinois, serving at the helm of a program that set multiple records and made history during a 2022-23 campaign that ended in the NCAA Tournament, something that had not happened in two decades.

As Green prepares for a second season commanding a steadied ship, here’s a look back at her historic and memorable first 365 days in Champaign.

Part 1: The Staff

It did not take long for Green to put together a staff with a proven track record. Ten days after taking over at Illinois, Green announced the hiring of assistant coach Ryan Gensler, who had previously spent five seasons as an assistant under Green at Dayton.

The next piece of the puzzle was director of basketball operations Maya Solomon, who spent two years in the same position at Dayton and joined the Illini program on April 6. Calamity McEntire became the team’s associate head coach the following day, reuniting with Green after spending the 2021-22 season at Texas after serving as the recruiting coordinator at Dayton from 2017-21.

Less than one week later, Green rounded out her coaching staff with the addition of assistant coach DeAntoine “Cat” Beasley, who joined the Illini after spending four years at Dayton under the same title.

Green brought aboard Emily Durr, who worked as an administrative associate at Dayton during the team’s 2021-22 campaign, as the program’s director of recruiting operations and Jenna Giacone, who played at Dayton from 2016-22, as the team’s director of scouting and player development at the beginning of May. 

Justin Peak, the program’s video and scouting operations coordinator, was the lone member of the Illini support staff who returned from the previous coaching regime. Graduate assistant Caleb Samson joined the group on Aug. 1, though Green did not complete her staff until Sept. 28, when she added Madison Dabrowski, director of branding and creative media.

Part 2: The Roster

Green inherited a relatively depleted roster when she took over in March 2022, with five players – Kendall Bostic, Geovana Lopes, Adalia McKenzie, Jayla Oden, and Jada Peebles – from the program’s 2021-22 team opting to return under new leadership.

With plenty of spots to fill, Green quickly went to work. Despite not yet having a completed staff, Green made a splash on April 11 with her first signee, Makira Cook, who played under the new Illini head coach for two seasons at Dayton. Cook was named the A-10 Most Improved Player and an all-conference second-team selection following her sophomore season in 2021-22.

Green’s second signing also played a big role for the Illini during the 2022-23 campaign, as NC State transfer Genesis Bryant put her trust in Green by committing to the Illini on April 18. One week after Cook made the move to Champaign, Green immediately bolstered her back-court depth with Bryant, who brought winning experience from her two deep NCAA Tournament runs with the Wolfpack.

Also joining from Dayton, Brynn Shoup-Hill announced her commitment to Illinois and its coaching staff on April 23. Incoming freshman Kam’Ren Rhodes (originally committed to Dayton) announced her commitment on April 27, and center Aicha Ndour joined one month later on May 27.

Green rounded out her first roster with freshman newcomers Samantha Dewey, Camille Jackson, and Liisa Taponen, though the Illini were not complete until August, when Taponen arrived after competing with Finland at the 2022 FIBA U20 Women’s European Championship.

Part 3: The Non-Conference Schedule

Following a 35-point exhibition win, Green picked up her first official victory with the Orange and Blue on Nov. 9 against LIU, a 75-40 triumph during which all 12 available players registered minutes. 

Rattling off six straight wins to open the season, the Illini’s 6-0 record marked the program’s best start since 1986-87 and their first six-game winning streak since 2009. That stretch included a 100-point performance over McNeese State on Field Trip Day in front of 8,141 fans, the team’s largest crowd in over 20 years.

Road wins over Pitt (92-71 on Nov. 30), Butler (65-63 on Dec. 11), and Missouri (76-66 on Dec. 18) along with a Bryant triple-double against Florida Atlantic on Dec. 21 helped Illinois finish its regular season non-conference slate with a 10-1 record. The three victories over the Panthers, Bulldogs, and Tigers marked the team’s first true road wins since Feb. 9, 2020.

Part 4: The Big Ten Slate

After narrowly falling on the road to No. 5/4 Indiana behind a career-high 33-point performance from Cook to open conference play, Green and the Illini secured their first Big Ten win against Rutgers on Dec. 7 at State Farm Center.

“This was a really big game,” said Green after the 18-point win over the Scarlet Knights. “I never want to say must-wins, but in my mind, I'm like, ‘We gotta win this game because it's on our home court.’ I've been preaching to our team that we do not lose at home. It's going to be really, really hard to beat us at home, and I think they're buying into that.

“Every game we play and every day, I can see us getting more confident. Every day, we're becoming more together and more confident, and it's been really, really fun to finally see.”

The Rutgers win, the program’s first over the Scarlet Knights since 2017, was Illinois’ first of four straight Big Ten victories, a stretch that included a dramatic 90-86 win over No. 12/10 Iowa on New Year’s Day. The Illini’s four-game conference winning streak tied the fourth-best streak in program history.

After a narrow 87-81 road loss to No. 3/3 Ohio State on Jan. 8, Illinois earned a spot in the AP Top-25 poll for the first time since Nov. 27, 2000, coming in at No. 24 and snapping a 8,072-day streak of the Illini missing out on a spot among the nation’s elite.

Over the course of the next seven contests, Illinois went 4-3, though the team was competitive in each game. Two of the three losses came against ranked opposition, while that stretch included road wins over Minnesota and Nebraska. 

Finishing the regular season with three wins out of five, the Illini recorded their first win at Nebraska since 2013, their biggest margin of victory over Penn State since 1998, and their first-ever road win over Rutgers. 

Illinois finished the conference schedule with an 11-7 mark against Big Ten competition, its most in league play since 1999-2000, while the Illini’s one-year 10-win improvement in conference games matched the largest turnaround in Big Ten history.

The Illini’s 21-8 regular-season record was their first 20-win season since 2007-08, with the 20th win coming at home against the Nittany Lions.

“As a coach, I think 20 wins is always a goal,” Green said. “If you can hit 20, you've had a pretty good season. To think back, if you would have told me we would get 20 wins, I probably would've told you you're crazy. Just so grateful for this team and how they've approached everything this whole year.”

Illinois went 12-3 at State Farm Center, and the Illini finished with a combined attendance of 52,295, the fifth-best mark in a single season in program history. Green is also the only Illini women's basketball head coach to ever bring in a total season attendance of 50,000 or better in their first season, and she put a big emphasis on creating a significant home-court advantage all season.

“We have to have that, and I focused on it from day one,” Green said. “I said, even at my press conference, that we have to have people come out to support this program. If we want to be a top-25 team consistently in the country and a top team in this league, we have to have the fan support. You have to. I'm very, very grateful for the community. Let's continue to climb, and hopefully we can get to where a lot of these other programs are because they've built it over time.”

Part 5: The Accolades

Green was tabbed the ESPN Women’s Basketball Coach of the Week on Dec. 19 after the Illini took down Missouri on the road and sat at 10-2 overall. She was named a midseason frontrunner by Just Women’s Sports for the NCAA Coach of the Year on Jan. 13, and she also earned a spot on the 2023 Werner Ladder Naismith Women's Coach of the Year Late Season Watch List on Feb. 15.

Cook earned First-Team All-Big Ten honors after the regular season, becoming the first Illini to be named to the all-conference first team by Big Ten coaches and media since Jenna Smith in 2010. Bryant and Bostic were named to the All-Big Ten second team, while McKenzie received All-Big Ten Honorable-Mention accolades, marking the first time since the 1986-87 season and just the second time in program history that four Illini earned all-conference honors.

Cook was also named to the Associated Press’ All-America Honorable-Mention list, the first Illinois All-American since Karisma Penn following the 2012-13 season.

Part 6: The Postseason

The Illini earned the No. 6 seed in the Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament presented by TIAA, their highest seeding since 2013. For the first time ever, the tournament took place at Target Center in Minneapolis, with Illinois taking on 11th-seeded Rutgers in the second round of action.

Illinois dominated from start to finish, with Cook and Bryant combining for 45 points in the 81-55 win over the Scarlet Knights, the team’s third victory over Rutgers during the 2022-23 campaign. The 26-point margin of victory was the program’s largest in Big Ten Tournament history and largest in postseason play since 1981.

“I’m really proud of these guys and how we came out and really executed the game plan from the start. I thought that was key,” Green said after the game. “We talk right now in March, it's about execution. It's about effort. I thought we were elite in both of those.

“I’m really proud of the confidence that our entire team played with. So offensively, we got moving, but that starts with our defense and our rebounding, and then we got in a flow offensively.”

Moving onto the quarterfinals for the first time since the 2010-11 season, the Illini fell to the No. 3-seeded Maryland Terrapins, 73-58. Despite the defeat, Illinois broke its program record for 3-pointers made in a season, with Bryant hitting two triples in the third quarter to push the new all-time mark to 225.

“If you would have told me before the season that we’d break that, I’d say you're crazy,” Green said after the Maryland loss. “That was probably one of the biggest ones. We were No. 1 in the nation in 3-point percentage for a while.

“I credit our players for repping it and getting in the gym. We don't take a lot of threes. We're shooting a high percentage, but we're not jacking threes. We're just not a team that's going to shoot a ton of them. Some teams in our league are known for shooting a ton of them. That's why I also think our efficiency has been higher because we take good threes, rhythm threes, and threes out of our offense.”

The Illini were confident they would hear their name called on Selection Sunday, and their confidence was confirmed when Illinois earned a spot in the First Four of the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship. 

Traveling to South Bend, Indiana, to take on Mississippi State in their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2003, the Illini fell to the Bulldogs, 70-56. Cook finished with a team-high 21 points, Bryant registered 17 points, and McKenzie recorded 10 points in her tournament debut.

Illinois ended the season with a 22-10 record, their most wins in a season since 1999-2000 and their third-most in program history, with the 15-win turnaround setting a new program record and becoming the third-biggest in Big Ten history.

Part 7: The Journey

Whether it be the team’s all-time-best 229 3-pointers, 15-win improvement, or 26-point Big Ten Tournament margin of victory, the 2022-23 season has been nothing short of historic. The Illini broke record after record in Coach Green’s first season at Illinois, rewriting history in the span of just one year.

With a large majority of Illinois’ roster set to return next season, Green and her #OneWay identity and culture have the program on track for success for years to come. After the Illini took college basketball by storm, the expectations will be higher next season, but the sky's the limit for this new-look, resurgent team that is ready to make an even bigger splash in Year 2.

“We had an absolutely amazing season. You're lying if anyone in here said we'd be here,” Green said after the First Four. “I’m really, really happy for these guys to be able to experience this, and now we're going to learn from it, and we're going to use this as motivation coming back because we have pretty much our entire team coming back.”