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The Fever announced that the team fired head coach Marianne Stanley on Wednesday, and assistant coach Carlos Knox will act as the interim head coach for the rest of the season. Stanley was reportedly in the final year of her contract.
Stanley is a legendary college basketball head coach, having led Old Dominion to an NCAA title in 1985. She also coached Penn, USC, Stanford and Cal through 2000, and will be inducted to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame this year.
After coaching in college, Stanley made a jump to the WNBA as an assistant but got her first professional head coaching position with the Mystics in 2002. She led Washington to the conference finals in her first season.
Following her stint in Washington, Stanley became a longtime WNBA assistant coach before getting her second head coaching opportunity in Indiana. However, over her first two seasons, the Fever posted a combined 12–42 record and missed the playoffs in both seasons, which included a last-place finish in 2021.
So far this season, the Fever are 2–7, one of five teams with two wins or less but lead the league with the most losses. They began the season 2–2 but lost five straight games including two by more than 20 points.
Indiana’s struggles last year helped get them two top-five picks in the 2022 WNBA draft, which they used on forwards NaLyssa Smith and Emily Engstler. The Fever hope that those two can join guards Kelsey Mitchell and Victoria Vivians to help the team get out of their rebuilding phase.
