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With Shea Ralph becoming the head coach at Vanderbilt, the UConn women’s basketball team had an assistant coaching vacancy, which has now been filled by three-time NCAA champion Morgan Valley.
Valley was the head coach of the Hartford Hawks the past two seasons, has also been an assistant at Arizona, Washington, Virginia Tech, UMass, Towson, UNH and Holy Cross and played for UConn from 2000 to 2004.
“Words cannot express how honored and excited I am to come back home and represent the University of Connecticut,” Valley said. “I am so grateful to Coach Auriemma for this amazing opportunity. This is a dream come true and I can’t wait to get started.”
“We’re absolutely thrilled to have Morgan come on board,” UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said. “We wanted to get someone in here who had varied experiences, and certainly Morgan, since her playing days at UConn, has had an impact at numerous schools around the country. We thought it’d be the perfect situation for us. Morgan is familiar with who we are, what we stand for and what our goals are. I think they’re perfectly aligned with Morgan’s values and goals, and we’re just excited to have her back with our program.”
Valley went to the Final Four while at Washington and there coached Kelsey Plum, the all-time NCAAW leader in points scored and a guard for the Las Vegas Aces in the WNBA. Valley was later a part of Arizona landing its best-ever recruiting class in 2018.
Valley is now back in Storrs for the first time since she was student coaching assistant during the 2004-05 season.