Paul Westhead to be named Oregon women’s basketball coach
Oregon Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny is expected to announce the hiring of Paul Westhead, 70, as the sixth Oregon women’s basketball coach, succeeding the recently departed Bev Smith.
Westhead, offered the job after a national search was conducted, has experience coaching at the highest levels of both men’s and women’s basketball. Named assistant coach of the Los Angeles Lakers in 1979–and head coach just weeks later–Westhead, with some help from Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won the 1979-80 NBA Championship. He was fired after posted a 7-4 record during the 1981-82 season and replaced by Pat Riley; that Lakers squad also won an NBA title. One season with the Chicago Bulls produced a 28-54 record in 1982-83, and another dismissal.
Westhead got his start in the college ranks, coaching LaSalle University for nine seasons (with two NCAA tournament berths) before arriving at Loyola Marymount in 1985. From 1985-1990, Westhead made Loyola Marymount into a powerhouse, making the NCAA tournament in his final three years, including an Elite Eight appearance in 1990. That season was most famous for the death of Hank Gathers, the NCAA’s leading scorer and rebounder (32.7 points, 13.7 rebounds per game) who collapsed on the court and died in the middle of the season.
Westhead returned to the NBA, posting a 20-62 record with the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets broke NBA records for points allowed (130.8 per game) despite scoring 119.9 points per game. (More on this later.) A 24-win season the next year ensured his firing.
In the 15 years since Westhead’s fateful endeavor with Denver, he has coached in Japan, in the CBA and at George Mason University (four undistinguished seasons) and held assistant coaching jobs with the Orlando Magic and Golden State Warriors. He broke back into the pro game in a most unique way in 2006, as the head coach of the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury.
The Westhead effect was instantaneous; the Mercury broke the WNBA’s scoring record in each of his first two seasons, and won a championship in 2007. But Westhead was called away from the women’s game that same year by then-Sonics head coach P.J. Carlesimo to serve as an assistant coach.
The big sticking point with Westhead is style. His teams are noted for a fast-breaking, breakneck-speed, full-court defense style of play that often leads to high offensive output…and often disastrous defensive output. Players, it has been noted, have to buy into his system for him to be successful, which has been used to explain the success of the Mercury.
But one last sticking point will haunt some longtime fans of the program: Westhead, who is considered a friend of Kilkenny, has never before coached women’s college basketball. Let the fireworks begin.
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