Butler is hiring former player Maria Marchesano as its new women’s basketball coach.
Marchesano comes to Butler after five seasons at Purdue Fort Wayne, where she had 168-92 record with the Mastodons.
“We are excited to bring Maria home to Butler,” Butler athletic director Grant Leiendecker said in a news release. “She is a proven program-builder, a coach who has achieved success at every university she has been. Maria will bring her immense talent, energy and commitment to Butler, a place that is incredibly special to her as someone who wore our jersey. Maria has a great vision for what our program can achieve and a solid plan on how to get there. The future is incredibly bright for Butler women’s basketball.”
Marchesano is a Fort Wayne native and Elmhurt High School graduate. She played four years of basketball and one season of softball at Butler, graduating in 2005. She finished her Butler career as the second-best 3-point shooter in program history (41.8 percent). She earned Horizon League all-newcomer team honors and was named Butler freshman female athlete of the year during the 2001-02 season.
Marchesano has amassed 234 wins across stops at Purdue Fort Wayne (five seasons), Mount St. Mary’s (four seasons), Walsh (three seasons) and Urbana (two seasons). She led the Mastodons to three straight 20-win seasons and three WNIT berths. She led Mount St. Mary’s to an NCAA Tournament berth in 2021.
She also was an associate head coach in 2016-17 at IUPUI for Austin Parkinson, who Butler said Monday it mutually parted ways with.
“Today is such a bittersweet day for me as I am both ecstatic to get rolling as the next head coach at Butler but also very sad and eternally grateful for my time in Fort Wayne,” Marchesano said. “I am extremely blessed to call both Fort Wayne and Butler home. I want to extend a huge thank you to Grant, President (James) Danko and the entire search committee for their belief in me and the opportunity to come back to Indy and wear that Butler name with pride.”
Parkinson came to Butler ahead of the 2022-23 season. He amassed a 54-73 record in four years with two WNIT appearances and no NCAA Tournament berths. The Dawgs were 23-53 in Big East playing during that time and finished no better than eighth, which was in his second season.
Parkinson came to Butler after a successful 12-season run at IUPUI. Parkinson is the all-time winningest coach at IUPUI (now IU Indy), with a 224-141 record, including a NCAA Tournament appearance in 2022. Prior to his arrival, the Dawgs had gone 1-27 and lost all 18 Big East games.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Butler names former player as women’s basketball coach 2 days after opening
Reporting by Akeem Glaspie, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
