USC Asst. Jumps to Paige Bueckers’s Likely WNBA Team Right After Beating Her

The Dallas Wings named Southern California assistant Chris Koclanes as their new head coach Monday morning, shortly after USC defeated UConn 72–70 Saturday night.

The Wings hold the No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA draft, where UConn’s Paige Bueckers is widely regarded as the top prospect.

Koclanes is in his second season at USC. Before that, he spent eight seasons in the WNBA with the Connecticut Sun and Los Angeles Sparks under current Wings EVP and GM Curt Miller, who was at the time the head coach of each team. Koclanes was hired as a video coordinator for the Sun in 2016 and started coaching as defensive coordinator in 2019, a position he held the rest of his time in the WNBA before going to USC. Miller was hired by the Wings in November.

“Throughout our extensive search and interview process, Chris continued to rise to the top and check the boxes of our important pillars,” Miller said in a statement announcing Koclanes’s hire. He touted the new coach’s commitment to player development, a nod to the team’s No. 1 pick, and his confidence in Koclanes to potentially follow Geno Auriemma as Bueckers’s coach.

Saturday’s game was one of the highest-anticipated matchups in women’s college hoops this season, as UConn announced the game sold out in October. The No. 7 Trojans took a 42–29 lead at halftime, but the No. 4 Huskies clawed their way back for a close finish. Bueckers and Freshman of the Year hopeful Sarah Strong weren’t enough to stop USC’s JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen, potentially the second pick behind Bueckers.

It’s been a tumultuous offseason for WNBA coaches, with more than half of them losing their jobs. Koclanes is the latest in a trend: hiring top-level college talent instead of WNBA retreads. The Sparks and Dream hired well-regarded college coaches from Utah and Florida Gulf Coast, respectively, while the Sun hired Rachid Meziane straight out of the French league. (Meziane will finish his season in France before jumping to the W, while Utah and FGCU both got new head coaches after theirs left midseason.)

The Washington Mystics were the final team with a head coaching vacancy, and they hired a coach and GM on Monday. The team announced that former Chicago Sky assistant Sydney Johnson would be its new coach, while it has hired Jamila Wideman from the NBA league office as the new GM.

Despite having some of the best players in the league in All-Star Game MVP Arike Ogunbowale, Natasha Howard, and Nyara Sabally, the Wings struggled last year, winning only nine games. But there are some bright signs ahead. On top of the No. 1 pick, the Wings announced earlier this year they’re moving to a bigger arena downtown in 2026, which will hold close to 10,000 fans compared to their current 6,250-seat venue. And, a team spokesperson told Front Office Sports in October that they expect to open a new practice facility ahead of the 2026 season as well.