Nikki McCray-Penson, who was a part of Dawn Staley's first 10 years at South Carolina, has been officially named the new head women's basketball coach at Mississippi State.
"It's been a dream of mine to be a head coach in the SEC, and I'm so grateful and blessed for this incredible honor and opportunity to lead Mississippi State women's basketball," McCray-Penson said in a statement.
"This is a national brand with incredible people, a storied tradition and an outstanding community that is second to none. I am confident that my experiences as a coach and player have prepared me for this, and I will pour everything I have into our student-athletes and program. My family and I are so happy to be a part of the Bulldog Family and we can't wait to get started."
The former Tennessee standout and two-time SEC Player of the Year under the late Pat Summitt, McCray-Penson was a three-time WNBA All-Star and a two-time Olympic gold medalist. She started her coaching career in 2006 at Western Kentucky where she spent three seasons before joining Staley's staff in Columbia. McCray-Penson was part of the Gamecock coaching staff which helped lead the Gamecock program to its first ever national championship, a win coincidentally over Mississippi State in Dallas. Now, McCray-:Penson has been hired by that same MSU program.
A 2020 WBCA National Coach of the Year finalist, McCray-Penson spent the past three seasons as the head coach at Old Dominion. The 2020 C-USA Coach of the Year led the Monarchs to a 24-6 record, a second-place finish in the conference standings and an RPI ranking of 33 to end the 2019-2020 season. It was the second season in a row that ODU had won at least 20 games, an accomplishment that hadn't been achieved since 2006-08.
McCray-Penson replaces Vic Schaffer who left to become the new head coach at Texas.
