Former USD Head Coach Heads to Big Ten

Minnesota has announced that former South Dakota women’s basketball coach Dawn Plitzuweit will be their head coach on March 18.

This came almost one year after Plitzuweit left South Dakota for West Virginia University.

Plitzuweit signed a six-year contract with the Golden Gophers after spending her first six seasons as a head coach with South Dakota and one season with West Virginia.

Plitzuweit started in South Dakota in 2016. She had a career record of 158-36. She earned the Summit League Coach of the Year award three times and was a semifinalist for the 2020 Werner Ladder Naismith Coach of the Year award.

The Coyotes made the NCAA tournament four straight years under Plitzuweit from 2019-2022. In Plitzuweit’s final three seasons at South Dakota, the Coyotes made it into the NCAA Coaches and AP Poll top 25 multiple times.

She also led the Coyotes to the highest ranking by any Summit league team ever when she made it to No. 11 in the 19-20 season.

She guided the Coyotes to a Women’s NCAA Sweet 16 run in the 2021-2022 season as a No. 10 seed. Her team defeated the No. 7 seed Ole Miss in the first round and No. 2 seed Baylor in the second round before losing to No. 3 seed Michigan 52-49.

After that run, Plitzuweit announced that she would move to a power five conference team in West Virginia.

She inherited a team that went 15-15 the previous season and in her first year as head coach, went 19-12. They were granted a tournament appearance as a No. 10 seed in the 2023 Women’s NCAA Tournament. The Mountaineers were knocked out of the tournament’s first round, losing to the No. 7 seed Arizona.