Women’s Basketball Coach DeUnna Hendrix leaves HPU
By Collin Giuliani
Sports Editor
On April 23, Miami (OH) announced that former HPU women’s basketball head coach DeUnna Hendrix would become the ninth head coach in program history. Hendrix, who spent the past eight seasons as the head coach of the Panthers, will take over a Miami RedHawks team that finished 23-9 this past season, and has made it to the WNIT in each of the past two seasons.
“I want to thank Dr. Qubein, [athletic director] Dan Hauser, [former athletic director] Craig Keilitz, and the High Point family for the past eight years,” stated Hendrix. “It was a true privilege to work alongside so many great people and to serve at such a reputable institution. The next chapter has led me to Miami University.”
Hendrix takes over the head coaching position from Megan Duffy, who was named the head coach at Marquette earlier this offseason. In her two seasons with the Red- Hawks, Duffy put the program in a great position; under her watch, Miami went 44-20 overall and 25-11 in conference play, posting back-to-back seasons of 20+ wins and making it to the WNIT in both of those seasons. In the four seasons prior to Duffy’s arrival at Miami, the RedHawks went just 35-87, going 16-56 in conference play, and never won more than 35 percent of their games in a single season.
Coach Hendrix leaves HPU with 125 wins over eight seasons. In her final win, a 70-89 road victory against Campbell to close out the regular season, Hendrix tied former UNC Asheville head coach Betsy Blose (2002-2012) for the eighth most overall wins in Big South history. Additionally, with 89 of those wins coming in conference play, Hendrix not only finishes her career with the seventh most conference wins in Big South history, but holds the all-time HPU record for most career wins in conference play, surpassing the total of 88 held by Tooey Loy (2001-2011).
Across eight seasons, Coach Hendrix finished her HPU career with a record of 89-43 in conference play. Among coaches to coach at least six seasons in the Big South, Hendrix possesses the second best conference winning percentage of all-time. This percentage is only surpassed by Liberty head coach Carey Green, who finished with a winning percentage of .868 in conference games before Liberty left the Big South to join the Atlantic Sun Conference in the 2018-19 season.
In eight seasons as the head coach of the Panthers, Hendrix coached two players who would later become the Big South Player of the Year, with Stacia Robertson winning the award in the 2014/15 season, and Emma Bockrath winning the award in the 2016/17 season. Hendrix’s ability to recruit and develop talent during this timeframe was second to none in the conference; over the past 10 seasons, HPU is the only team in the Big South to have multiple players receive Big South Player of the Year honors.
Coach Hendrix always found a way to get results in conference play. In eight seasons as HPU’s head coach, Hendrix posted eight consecutive seasons with 10 or more wins in conference play. For perspective, from the time HPU joined the Big South and Division I in the 1999-2000 season until Hendrix’s arrival, HPU had three such seasons. Hendrix is just the second head coach in Big South history to post eight consecutive seasons of double-digit wins in conference play, alongside Liberty head coach Carey Green, who did this in each of his 19 seasons in the conference.