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With Ashley Resignation, McConnell Retirement PSAC West WBB to have Different Look in 2022-23

Tom McConnell announced his retirement from IUP July 21
            

CLARION, Pa. – The women’s basketball coaching ranks in the PSAC West will look quite different in the 2022-23 season with at least three of the division’s nine schools sporting new coaches – all for different reasons.

                  

At PennWest-Clarion, head coach Jana Ashley told her team Saturday, July 23, that she was resigning to take a job at Kent St. The university hasn’t confirmed the resignation as of 3 p.m. Monday, July 25 but numerous sources confirmed it to d9and10sports.

Ashley was the Golden Eagles head coach for eight seasons going 55-152.

IUP head coach Tom McConnell announced July 21 that he was retiring after eight seasons at the school. He compiled a 197-50 record with four PSAC West titles, two PSAC titles, and a pair of Atlantic Region titles (2018 and 2019), which came with trios to the NCAA Elite Eight.

McConnell was named the PSAC West Coach of the Year three straight times (2018, 2019, 2020), a conference record.

                                      

He was a head coach at the collegiate level for 15 years, spending seven seasons on the bench for the Division I Saint Francis (Pa.) men’s program from 1992-99. He won 85 games for the Red Flash, including a 17-10 record during the 1997-98 season. All told, McConnell has 282 collegiate victories.

Slippery Rock head coach Bob McGraw tragically and unexpectedly died July 10.

McGraw recently completed his eighth season as the Slippery Rock women’s basketball coach, He was the third longest-tenured coach in SRU women’s basketball history and led the program to 77 wins, the fourth-most in school history.

                       

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