Austin College turns to an accomplished alum and D1 assistant as its next head coach
Olivia Hunt will lead the 'Roos into the 2025-26 campaign after 2 years at North Texas
SHERMAN, Texas — Olivia Hunt spent four years playing at Austin College, graduating in 2017 after a senior season in which she led the SCAC in 3-point percentage in league play. She spent 2017-18 as a graduate assistant on the AC staff; her first collegiate coaching job. In 2022, Hunt returned to Sherman as the ‘Roos full-time assistant coach.
Now she will arrive at Austin College for a third time, and yet in a different role. After an extensive head coaching search, AC tabbed Hunt as the program’s next head coach, announcing the news on Thursday.
"Olivia has been a part of so many pivotal points with the program over the years and I am so excited to welcome her back in the role of head coach," Former AC head coach Michelle Filander, who will become the College's new athletics director beginning in the 2025-26 academic year, said in a press release. "She is an outstanding fit, and we are fortunate to have her return to Austin College to continue building the culture she helped create."
Hunt will look to lead AC women’s basketball back to a place of prominence within the SCAC, having gained extensive experience in eight seasons as an assistant. She was most recently on staff at Division I North Texas under AC alum Jason Burton, and contributed to 2023-24 team that won a share of the AAC regular season title. UNT went 48-17 in Hunt’s two seasons with the program and made two postseason appearances (WBIT in 2023-24, WNIT in 2024-25).
She also spent three years at UT-Dallas, learning from accomplished head coach Polly Thomason from 2019-2022. That stint came after a season at Texas A&M-Commerce (now East Texas A&M). During her lone season in Commerce, the Lions reached the D2 national tournament, and posted the third 20-win season in program history.
By all accounts, this seems like a perfect fit. Hunt knows AC extremely well, both as a player and a coach, and that will no doubt be impactful on the recruiting trail. The fact that she played for and coached with Filander means there is already that strong relationship between head coach and AD, something any coach will tell you is crucial in building in a successful program. And I think there’s some flare to the hire, with Hunt not just coming from the Division I ranks, but from a very successful, regionally-known program at UNT.
"I am honored to be coming back to Austin College as the head women's basketball coach," said Hunt in a release. "Thank you to President Steven O'Day, David Norman, and Michelle Filander for entrusting me to lead this program. Austin College women's basketball has seen a lot of success under Michelle Filander for the last 16 years. I consider myself blessed to have both played for and coached with her. I can't wait to carry on the winning tradition. Let's get to work!"
» Full release from Austin College (link)
Final Top 25 ballot breakdown — #16 through #20
As the main storylines at this point in the spring move to coaching news, I figured I’d continue pairing my brief breakdowns of my final Top 25 ranking with coaching carousel updates. Expect the final Top 25 notes (with teams #21 through #25) to be coming Monday morning.
Catholic (24-5): The Cardinals were the arguably the biggest victim of an upset in this year’s tournament, falling to SUNY Geneseo in the first round at home. But then again, consider what Geneseo went on to do, obliterating NJAC champ Montclair State in the second round, and pushing eventual national champ NYU for a full two quarters in the Sweet 16 on a neutral court. So maybe it wasn’t as big of an upset as we had initially thought. Catholic finished the season No. 12 in overall efficiency, and ranked in the Top 20 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, one of only eight teams this season to do so. Between Kerry Flaherty, Anna Scoblick, and Keegan Douglas in the backcourt, Catholic had three shooters with 34 or more made 3s, including 82 from Flaherty, the Landmark Conference’s leader in 3s. And what was the missing piece when Catholic fell to Geneseo? Their perimeter shooting was nowhere to be found, including a 2-for-24 start from the field and a 6-for-37 night from 3. Defensively, in that game included, Catholic was great about pressuring the ball and holding teams to one-and-done possessions. They ranked second in the Landmark in defensive rebounding and held Geneseo to nine offensive boards in that NCAA Tournament matchup. I think the final data point here is the record against Elizabethtown. Yes, ETown beat Scranton once and Catholic went 0-2 vs the Lady Royals. But Catholic won twice at ETown, including in the Landmark Tournament semifinals, after losing the first matchup at home. When I considered the head-to-head results later in the season, and the significant efficiency advantage, Catholic ultimately stayed a bit higher than ETown.
Elizabethtown (23-5): The Blue Jays put together an exceptional season, following up on the disappointment of missing the tournament in 2024 to reach the second round of the tournament this time around. With a senior-laden core led by Summer McNulty (13.7 PPG, 2.8 APG), ETown was a tough out all season. They played Randolph-Macon within six in a true road game in the second round, and led the Landmark in both field goal and 3-point percentage, with a number of offensive weapons on both the interior and perimeter. The one area where it seemed they struggled at times was on the defensive end, and in defending without fouling. Six of their final seven games saw the opponent shoot 16 or more free throws, which wasn’t helpful with ETown’s opponents shooting 70.4% at the line against them this season. Efficiency-wise, they ranked No. 4 offensively, but No. 117 defensively, the only team in the nation’s Top 30 (in overall efficiency margin) with a defensive efficiency above 100. But again, there’s no question of ETown’s talent level. They were the only team to beat Scranton in the regular season, were one of only two teams to win at Catholic in the regular season, and finished with a 16-2 Landmark record, their best since Veronica Nolt took over as head coach in 2015.
Wartburg (26-3): The loss of Macy Harris at point guard proved to be more significant than I had anticipated going into the season. She was, after all, a player with 131 career games under her belt, and averaged 3.3 assists/game in 2023-24. Without Harris on the floor, Wartburg’s offense was still good, but lacked some of the firepower that propelled the Knights to a Final Four run a season ago. There were more shaky performances than the 26-3 record may reveal, especially midway through, and their efficiency numbers were never excellent, relative to their record and national ranking. Wartburg finished at No. 32 in efficiency margin, but at the same time, they won games against quality opponents down the stretch, claimed yet another A-R-C title, and reached the second round of the national tournament with a 57-56 win over UW-Stevens Point in the opening round. I still think Coe ended up being better than their final record showed, and the A-R-C had an interesting way of being deep, but less nationally relevant than in past years at the same time. Going 16-0 in any league is tough, especially a conference ranked No. 9 in strength by Massey Ratings, and one that featured five Massey Top 100 teams. That considered, Wartburg stayed right around the Top 20 of my ballot, and slightly ahead of some others with similar NCAA Tournament performances.
Trine (25-4): With Sidney Wagner at the point guard position, Trine played above my preseason expectations. To go 16-0 in a league that also featured Hope and Calvin is no easy feat, and they added big wins over Wisconsin Lutheran (tournament team), Ohio Northern, and Ripon (tournament team), with their only regular season losses coming against UW-Oshkosh and Baldwin Wallace. I didn’t love the 82-50 loss in the second round of the tournament to Illinois Wesleyan, especially after being upset by Calvin a week earlier in the MIAA Tournament, but then again, the game was at IWU and the Titans were the #2 seed in their quadrant. So you can’t fault Trine too much. Wagner had a stellar year with a 16.1 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 4.0 APG stat line, and Erin Sherwood’s scoring took a jump, going from 7.7 PPG as a sophomore to 11.3 PPG as a junior. That duo played a key role in Trine leading the MIAA in FG% (44.6%) and Wagner’s performance in the backcourt helped the Thunder rank No. 1 in the MIAA (and in the Top 40 nationally) in assist-to-turnover ratio. Taking care of the ball definitely won Trine a few games, and with their level of discipline and detail, I kept the Thunder just inside my Top 20.
Christopher Newport (26-2): CNU had a fairly surprising first-round tournament exit, falling to Montclair State on a neutral court at Catholic. I’ve said it before, but while I fully expected CNU to reach the second round, there were some prior signs leading into the tournament that indicated the Captains could fall victim to an upset. Perhaps it’s a part of playing such a weak schedule in January and February—something entirely outside of their control—or the injuries they dealt with along the way, but CNU wasn’t quite as dominant this season, with narrow wins over Guilford, Salisbury, and Mary Washington in the five weeks prior to NCAAs. Ultimately, they just started slow far too often, and Montclair was the wrong team to have a rough start against. In three of CNU’s final four games, the Captains were outscored in the first quarter by an average of 5.6 points. I say all this to explain why CNU is down at No. 20, but to quickly make the case for keeping them in my ballot, I think talent-wise, this team was very capable. I’d put Gabbi San Diego within my Top 5 point guards in the country, and Camille Malagar is so versatile with the way she fits into the CNU style of play, Hannah Orloff had veteran experience and gave the Captains and inside presence, and depth-wise, they were capable of wearing opponents down through the second halves of games. While it didn’t seem like injuries were at play in the most critical point of the year—tournament time—I can’t help but wonder how much the absences (or key players playing limited minutes) early on affected the timeline of growth and development for the entire season.
Illinois Wesleyan seeking 1 more team for Midwest Challenge — Nov. 29-30, 2025
The Midwest Challenge has become one of the premier four-team annual tournaments on the D3 WBB calendar each season, and 2025 will be no different. WashU (who returns 5 players who made at least 14 starts in 2024-25), DePauw (reigning NCAC Tournament champ), and Illinois Wesleyan (Sweet 16 appearance this past spring), are the three teams currently committed to the tournament, which will be played inside IWU’s state-of-the-art Shirk Center.
IWU currently has one spot left in the four-team field for this upcoming season. For any team looking to test itself against top competition in non-conference play, this is a tremendous opportunity on the final weekend of November.
Reach out to IWU head coach Mia Smith at msmith@iwu.edu or 309-824-9846 for more information if your team has interest in being part of the 2025 edition of the Midwest Challenge. The agreement can be for a single year or multiple years.