Two days after Cornell women’s basketball ended its season in a blowout loss to Columbia, Cornell athletic director Nicki Moore announced that Dayna Smith would no longer be the program’s head coach.
“Dayna Smith has led the Big Red women’s basketball program for more than two decades with integrity and drive, dedicating herself to developing successful student-athletes on and off the court,” Moore said in a statement released by Cornell Athletics on Monday morning. “She is a well-respected coach, a well-liked colleague and a true ambassador for the game of basketball. I thank her for her service to Cornell athletics, and wish her the very best. Coach Smith will always be an important part of this program’s history.”
Smith, the dean of Ivy women’s basketball coaches following the 2022 retirement of Harvard’s Kathy Delaney-Smith, finishes her 22-year career on East Hill with 32 All-Ivy players, an overall record of 224-345 record and an Ancient Eight championship in 2007-08.
“As I look back on more than 20 years of people and moments, I’m very grateful for the opportunity to have served as head basketball coach at Cornell,” Smith told Cornell Athletics. “I have a lifetime of memories created and friendships built. I’m especially proud of all that my student-athletes have accomplished at Cornell and all that they’ll continue to do in the future. I want to thank Andy Noel for giving me the opportunity to become a head coach, the Cornell administration for supporting me over the years, and my assistant coaches and support staff who dedicated themselves to this program and will forever be part of my family.”
Following an outstanding career at the University of Rhode Island, where she was a two-time All-Atlantic 10 point guard, Smith joined the Rams’ staff immediately after her graduation in 1996. She worked her way up to the primary assistant role in her third year and spent three months as the program’s interim coach.
The Pittsburgh, Pa. native moved back to the Keystone State in 1999, taking an assistant coaching position at the University of Pennsylvania.
During three seasons in Philadelphia, Smith helped the Quakers to an undefeated 2000-2001 Ivy title and a pair of runner-up finishes.
Andy Noel, the long-serving Cornell Athletic Director, who retired at the end of 2022, hired Smith to be the Big Red’s seventh all-time head coach in June 2002.
Smith would eventually lead Cornell to its first, and only, Ivy League championship in the 2007-2008 season, where her team went down to defeat against number one University of Connecticut in the opening round.
In the Ivy League Tournament era, Smith’s senior-dominant 2016-17 team tied for fourth with a young squad at Brown but missed out on the last bid for the inaugural Ivy Madness when the Bears upset Cornell at Newman Arena on the final night of the regular season.
The Big Red would be on the other side of the tiebreaker two years later, when Smith led the team to a season finale win at Dartmouth. After finishing the regular season tied with the Big Green and Yale at 6-8, Cornell won the head-to-head tiebreaker with a combined 3-1 record.
That team, which was picked eighth in the preseason Ivy poll, lost in the semifinals to eventual champion Princeton.
During that year’s tournament at Yale, it was apparent to everyone covering the opening press conferences that the other Ivy coaches had tremendous respect for Smith. Each of the other participants, Princeton’s Courtney Banghart, Penn’s Mike McLaughlin and Delaney-Smith, offered praise for Smith and happiness for her team’s presence in the Ancient Eight’s Final Four without being asked.
Those positive feelings remain, as noted by Columbia head coach Megan Griffith, who faced Smith as a player and peer over the years.
“I have the utmost respect for Dayna. I have respected her from afar since I was a player in the League,” Griffith told Ivy Hoops Online on Monday afternoon. “She is a tremendous coach and someone I have always looked up to in the profession. I wish her the best in her next chapter.”
Since the 2018-19 season, the Big Red have had difficulties in a conference that has only gained in strength and stature.
Over the last four seasons, Cornell has gone 36-68 overall and 11-45 in conference play with three seventh-place finishes and one sixth-place showing.
The Big Red have struggled offensively, finishing at No. 356 in three-point rate, No. 349 in three-point shooting, No. 311 in two-point shooting and No. 306 in offensive rating, according to Her Hoops Stats. Defense typically was the team’s strength during the Smith era, but Cornell’s defense was at or near the bottom of the Ivy League in many metrics and No. 250 nationally.
With Smith’s departure, long-serving associate head coach Val Klopfer will serve as interim head coach as Moore leads a search for a permanent replacement.
“The Ivy League has become one of the preeminent women’s basketball conferences in the country,” Moore noted in her announcement. “As we embark on a new leg of this journey, we do so with unwavering confidence in our ability to discover an exceptional leader who will embrace the ideals of the Ivy League and Cornell University, and who will cultivate, prepare and propel extraordinary student-athletes toward academic and basketball achievement as well as lifelong success and wellbeing.”