Oct. 24—CHAMPAIGN — No Illinois women’s basketball coach has had a better start to their tenure than Shauna Green.
The 41 wins Green has in her first two seasons as an Illini coach are the most in program history during a coach’s initial two seasons.
That success has been rewarded, with Illinois announcing on Thursday afternoon Green has received a two-year contract extension, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees at its Nov. 14 meeting. The new agreement will keep Green on a six-year contract through at least the 2029-30 season.
The new deal also calls for up to four additional one-year extensions if certain performance thresholds are met.
“Shauna Green has invigorated Illini women’s basketball and positioned us for sustained success,” Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman said in a statement. “Her ability to unify the locker room and create a winning culture has been evident throughout her career — qualities that have been on full display since the moment she set foot on this campus. The program’s rapid ascent, marked by an NCAA tournament appearance and the inaugural WBIT title during her first two years, has been accompanied by record crowds and increased fan enthusiasm throughout our community.
“In addition, she and her staff have built enduring relationships with our student-athletes and are seeing significant breakthroughs on the recruiting trail. The ‘relentless pursuit of being elite’ is Coach Green’s mantra, and those are words that she and her team live by. We are fortunate to have her leadership in building a championship program and are grateful to Shauna and Andy for their commitment to the University of Illinois.”
Green is 41-25 as the Illini coach with Illinois returning to the NCAA tournament for the first time in two decades in 2023 and posting a 19-15 record last season that included the aforementioned WBIT championship, the first postseason tournament title in program history.
Financial terms of the new contract Green is set to receive were not disclosed on Thursday.
Green’s previous deal — she signed a six-year contract before starting her Illinois tenure ahead of the 2022-23 season — called for her to earn $880,000 during the year starting on July 1, 2024. This past year, Green became the first coach of an Illinois women’s sports team to top $1 million in earnings in a single school year.
She surpassed the $1 million mark through regular compensation ($840,000), two separate $15,000 bonuses for Illinois’ WBIT berth and WBIT title and a retention bonus of $150,000 paid out on April 30, 2024.
“I want to thank Josh for his unwavering support for me and this program,” Green said in a statement. “His vision and commitment to women’s basketball was the reason I came to Illinois and continues to be the reason I want to stay here. With Josh and (senior woman administrator) Sara Burton by my side, our program has made great strides in our first two years. I also want to thank our coaches and players for embracing our vision and our approach to building a championship program. I am proud to lead them every day.
“We are extremely excited about what we have accomplished but are by no means satisfied. I am beyond grateful to serve as the head women’s basketball coach at a world-class institution like Illinois and work alongside so many talented, dedicated people. I am excited to lead this program for years to come.”
Illinois will open the 2024-25 season in two weeks when the Illini host No. 19 Florida State at 7 p.m. on Nov. 7 at State Farm Center in Champaign.
There’s plenty of hype surrounding Green’s current team, with Illinois receiving votes in the AP Top 25 preseason poll and returning its top four scorers from last season in veteran guards Makira Cook, Genesis Bryant and Adalia McKenzie and fifth-year forward Kendall Bostic.
Green’s tenure has also been accompanied by gains on the recruiting trail for the Illini program.
Illinois landed a McDonald’s All-American in the 2024 recruiting cycle with forward Berry Wallace, a five-star recruit, a current freshman on the Illini roster.
In September, Illinois got five-star Class of 2025 point guard Destiny Jackson to say “yes,” with the Whitney Young standout verbally committing to Green and Co. That Jackson is on board represents a key recruiting win, with Green making clear when she took over a downtrodden Illini program in March 2022 that a lot of the program’s recruiting success would be defined by keeping the state’s top in-state talent at home.
Jackson is one of three verbal commits for Illinois in the 2025 class, along with four-star Canadian forward Cearah Parchment and Australian wing Erica Finney.
