The West Virginia State girls’s basketball program has introduced its subsequent head coach, who will take over following the departure of former chief Charles Marshall.
Former Large Ten standout and Division I assistant coach Whitney Bays will return to the state the place she was a two-time Gatorade Participant of the Yr at Huntington Excessive College, taking on as head coach of the Yellow Jackets’ girls’s basketball workforce.
“I’m extremely honored and humbled to be named the top girls’s basketball coach at WV State College,” Bays stated. “This college has a robust historic basis, and I’m excited to construct on that custom. My imaginative and prescient is to develop champions on the court docket, within the classroom, and in life. I stay up for connecting with our student-athletes, school and workers, alumni, and group. It’s good to be dwelling. Go State!”
Following a stellar highschool profession, Bays started her school profession enjoying on the College of Maryland earlier than transferring to Purdue.
W-🏀 | Whitney Bays takes helm of WVSU Ladies’s Basketball 👇https://t.co/Z8JIzqXxJD pic.twitter.com/zNrCC8SjU6
— WVSU Athletics (@WVSU_GoJackets) June 23, 2025
In her first season at Purdue in 2013, Bays had a breakout efficiency, and he or she was named the Large Ten Sixth Girl of the Yr.
Her senior season noticed her chosen to the All-Large Ten Second workforce after she posted a team-leading 15.1 factors, 9.8 rebounds, and a pair of.1 steals. This included setting a brand new college single-season document for complete rebounds with 304.
After embarking on an abroad enjoying profession with Gigantes de Carolina in Puerto Rico, notably main the workforce to a Baloncesto Superior Nacional Femenino (BSNF) championship in 2018.
Bays’ collegiate teaching profession started as an assistant at Gardner-Webb in 2022, serving to lead the workforce to its first NCAA event berth in 12 years.
The next yr, she was employed as an assistant coach on the College of Memphis, spending the final two seasons with them earlier than taking up the West Virginia State head teaching job.
West Virginia State completed the 2024 season with an 18-13 general document and a 10-10 convention document. This prolonged their streak of consecutive successful seasons to 4, marking their longest streak prior to now quarter century.
