Molly Miller Looks to Reshape Arizona State Women's Basketball Program

Graham Rossini recently made the most significant hire of his young career as Arizona State Athletic Director.

The move? Bringing Grand Canyon's Molly Miller to Tempe to lead the Sun Devils' women's basketball program.

A once proud program under Charli Turner Thorne - who took them to the second week of the NCAA Tournament five times - has fallen under difficult times since the longtime coach retired at the conclusion of the 2021-22 season.

Deleware head coach Natasha Adair was brought on to build on what Thorne had built in two-plus decades, but the Athletic Department simply put unfair expectations on the new coach with limited resources to accomplish the lofty goals.

Adair went 29-62 in three seasons and Miller was installed shortly after Grand Canyon's tournament exit - the 38 year old head coach that has won nearly 300 games in her career already is looking to flip the script with expedience.

Miller discussing the new team building a defense-first mentality via Jenna Ortiz of the Arizona Republic:

"They are awesome. I told em', I'm like 'you can't just have this honeymoon stage one week; we're going to have to sustain this. It's easy to have juice week one, but can you build this, sustain this?' Can you build habits where you love defense, where you're bought into it?"

Miller has been a wildly successful program builder at smaller schools in over a decade of holding head coach posts - and it's very clear why.

"This group has been phenomenal. They've been awesome to coach - they're just like hanging onto every word and their eyes are this big, and that's all I want from a coach. It's just that buy-in, that effort, that energy, positive body language... they've really shown me that these first few days."

Miller returns four players from the 2024-25 squad, while also bringing in one true freshman and several incoming transfers.

While competing in an uber-competitive Big 12 could be too much to ask in year one of the Miller era, the program is clearly building positive momentum towards the future - and the team could be looking at a first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2019 in short order.

Read more about how the potential basketball arena renovations could positively impact the basketball programs here, and listen to a recent podcast discussing the current state of the men's program here.

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