First-year head coaches Becky Burke and Molly Miller spoke to the media via back-to-back Zoom sessions at Big 12 Women’s Basketball Media Day on Tuesday. It was fitting, as the two coaches and their programs
will walk similar paths this year. The two coaching staffs also have ties that go back decades.
Stephanie Norman, who was hired as Miller’s associate head coach and director of basketball strategy, is one of Burke’s mentors. While Burke raved about the guidance of Jeff Walz, her head coach at Louisville, she also brought up Norman without prompting.
Norman was on the staff at Louisville for 18 years as an assistant coach and associate head coach, helping take them to 16 NCAA Tournaments. She joined Miller’s staff this season to try to build her alma mater into the same kind of powerhouse. Norman played for the Sun Devils from 1984-1988.
“She’s somebody that I’m extremely close with, and she’s now the general manager at Arizona State, and so her and I get together often,” Burke said. “We meet in the middle, or she comes to Tucson, and we hang out and we talk. And you know, those people and those relationships that I built at Louisville are lifelong, no matter where they are. Steph and I joke all the time, now we’re big rivals, but those relationships are lifelong. And I know at the end of the day, Steph has my best interest in mind, no matter what school she’s at. Jeff has my best interest in mind.”
Burke and Miller share more than a trusted coaching connection. The pair of coaches were stars at lower levels of college basketball before landing their first Power 4 gigs this year. They will also both be leaning heavily on transfers this season as they look to rebuild their programs.
Arizona has had much more recent success than ASU. The Wildcats went to the last six postseasons. They won the 2019 WNIT title and played for the 2021 NCAA title.
ASU last made the NCAA Tournament in 2019, although they likely would have made the 2020 tourney if not for the pandemic. The Sun Devils’ last postseason appearance of any kind came in 2021 under Charli Turner Thorne. The same year the Wildcats were coming within a basket of winning a national title, the Sun Devils went out in the first round of the WNIT, which was still the secondary postseason tournament at the time.
This year could be different simply because Miller has some advantages. She took the ASU job partly because athletic director Graham Rossini gave her space while she was leading Grand Canyon to its first NCAA Tournament appearance.
“I was so hyper focused on my team at Grand Canyon but this happens in real time,” Miller said. “So you have to listen and have these conversations. I think what was one of the more appealing things is Graham let me do it on my timeline. Our AD at Arizona State is a phenomenal human being, and that character point really stuck out to me. I wanted to go somewhere where I could do it the right way, be around people who supported me but also thought like me. And Graham exemplified that for me in this process. He was so gracious because, again, all my attention was making it to this tournament run and focusing on my team currently. And he really let me go through the process.”
Despite being allowed to take things at her own pace, Miller was still being announced as the new ASU head coach on Mar. 22, 2025. That was three days before the transfer portal opened, positioning Miller to get in on the ground floor with the available transfers.
Miller also had time to at least talk to some of the Sun Devil players before they put their own names in the portal. While stars Jalyn Brown and Tyi Skinner didn’t return, she did retain three players from last year’s roster to help with some continuity.
Burke did not have that luxury. Arizona introduced Burke on Apr. 11. She had one injured player on the roster and was behind the eight ball in portal recruiting. There was no freshman class, since the signed recruits followed Adia Barnes to SMU.
“A complete rebuild from the studs,” Burke said. “I mean, when you talk about us being hired and walking down from a stage like this at my press conference, we had one player in the locker room. And so this is a complete rebuild. We weren’t hired early in the process by any means, as far as the cycle goes and the portal goes. So we came in here and hit the ground running 100 miles an hour as soon as my name was called. And so we’ve done a tremendous job of hiring a staff, building a roster, and the time frame that we had. Again, we’re a no excuses group, but let’s be real about what it was. I mean, it was bare bones, so definitely a complete rebuild.”
That advantage may have been what helped Miller get multiple players with Power 4 starting experience. While Burke signed some transfers from Power 4 teams, none of them have much (if any) on-court experience at that level.
Up Next for Arizona Women’s Basketball
West Texas A&M Buffaloes @ Arizona Wildcats (EXH)
When: Thursday, Oct. 23 @ 6 p.m. MST
Where: McKale Center in Tucson, Ariz.
TV/Streaming: None
That’s not to say that Power 4 experience is the only thing that matters. The three former mid-major players that Burke took with her to Kansas City all hold promise and will play important roles for the Wildcats this year.
Mickayla Perdue was the Horizon League Player of the Year in 2025. She also gave Arizona men’s basketball player Anthony Dell’Orso a run for his money in the Red-Blue 3-point contest, losing by one.
Lani Cornfield is an even-keeled, serious point guard who averaged 5.8 assists and 2.6 steals per game for Burke and the Buffalo Bulls last year. She’s tiny but focused and hardnosed.
Sumayah Sugapong was the Big West Tournament Most Outstanding Player in 2025. She also has experience playing against professionals as a member of the Philippines women’s senior team.
ASU will also look to some former mid-major players to meet the demands of this level of play. In addition to Power 4 transfers Last-Tear Poa and Gabby Elliott, Miller brought former UNLV starter McKinna Brackens to represent the Sun Devils at media day.
Both groups are trying to get things together quickly. Burke said that she knows that they have some issues, such as being very small at the guard position compared to other Big 12 teams.
“I think what people are going to see—like, literally, what I’m even seeing walking around this building today—we’re small,” Burkes said. “We’re going to be undersized. We’re going to have some some things that don’t look to our favor on paper. But I think what they don’t know about our team is our competitiveness, our attention to detail, our blue collar mentality, how gritty these guys are, the chip that they all have on their shoulder.”
Miller also sees a lot that needs to happen before her team takes the court. She wants to see “daily wins” in practice.
“Well, we kind of did a little bit of a a scout practice yesterday, and at that moment, I was like, oh, I need more time,” Miller said. “I got to put in this. We probably need one more out-of-bounds play. We need to do a press break…So there’s so much to get to, and we will eventually, day by day. It’ll happen, but this team will progress at the right time. I’m just looking forward to seeing those daily wins, and we will get better as the team progresses. I think, when you have a brand and you’re trying to initiate it for the first time, the first year and a new conference with a new team, you should see daily progression, and that’s what we’re aiming for.”
Daily progression and daily wins may be what both of the state’s Big 12 universities hang their hats on in the near future. How quickly they can move to the next step will ultimately tell the story of this season and, in the long run, the tenures of their new head coaches.
