Yale’s Allison Guth receives contract extension through 2023-24

Yale athletic director Vicky Chun announced Friday that the school had signed women’s basketball coach Allison Guth to a contract extension through the 2023-24 season. This follows a season, where the Bulldogs made its first appearance in the Ivy Tournament, earned 19 wins and won the Women’s Basketball Invitational (WBI) Tournament championship. Said Chun in the Athletic Department announcement, “Allison Guth has proven herself to be an excellent coach, recruiter and mentor. Yale women’s basketball is in great hands with her leading the way.”

In three years as Yale’s head coach, Guth has an overall record of 48-38 with a five-win improvement between years one and three.  In the Ivy League, she is 19-23 with a 8-6 mark last season.  She is in her second stint at Yale, where she was the assistant coach and recruiting coordinator from 2010-2012.  “Having the support of tremendous visionaries like President (Peter) Salovey and Vicky Chun make my job especially rewarding,” said Guth in the program’s announcement. “I am incredibly grateful for the belief that our leadership at Yale has in our program’s growth, knowing that this opportunity exists because of our fantastic staff and players who have worked relentlessly to build a championship culture.”

Guth spent three years playing for the University of Illinois, where she started as a walk-on before earning a full scholarship.  After graduating in 2004, she started her coaching career as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Loyola-Chicago from 2005-07. She then moved on to the University of Missouri as an assistant coach during the 2007-2008 season.  From there, she joined DePaul as Director of Basketball Operations from 2008-2010.  After helping the Blue Demons reach the NCAA Tournament in both seasons, Yale head coach Chris Gobrech asked Guth to join the Bulldogs staff as an assistant coach.

Guth helped Yale to back-to-back 13-15 and 7-7 Ivy seasons, before moving back to her native Illinois to join the Northwestern staff before the 2012-13 campaign.  After Gobrech’s sudden departure for the Air Force in April of 2015, Guth was tabbed by then-Director of Athletics Tom Beckett to take over the Bulldogs program as its 10th head coach.

Following last year’s success, coach Guth lost the services of first team All-Ivy forward Jen Berkowitz, two-time Ivy Defensive Player of the Year guard Tamara Simpson, and all three of her assistant coaches.  Fortunately, the coach will be bringing in the top-rated mid-major class according to the PASS rankings, including ESPN five-star #50 national recruit Camilla Emsbo.  With an improving Dartmouth team that finished last year in fifth place and a healthy Brown team that was 12-1 before a season-ending injury to Taylor Will, coach Guth will have her work cut out for her as she tries to guide the Bulldogs back to the Ivy Tournament this year) to be hosted at Yale’s John J. Lee Amphitheater) and challenge league powers Princeton, Penn and Harvard for a permanent spot in the league’s upper half.