Things continue to shift and change in the Marquette women’s basketball office as this offseason gets underway. We’ve already discussed a pair of player transfers that are already out in the public, and now we turn our attention to a change in head coach Cara Consuegra’s staff. On Friday morning, MU assistant coach Chaia Meier was tabbed as the 11th head coach in Bradley women’s basketball history.
To the press release!
“Throughout this search, Chaia quickly distinguished herself as the right person
to lead our program forward,” said Reynolds. “As a Central Illinois native, she brings a strong connection to this region and a clear understanding of what it takes to excel at Bradley. Chaia has demonstrated success as both a head coach and assistant, consistently developing student-athletes and building competitive programs. She is the ideal leader for Bradley Women’s Basketball and will create a premier student-athlete experience that positions our program for sustained success.”
“My family and I are thrilled to join the Bradley community and return to Central Illinois, a place that we consider home,” Meier said. “I want to thank Chris Reynolds and Jen Jones for the opportunity to lead this program and these young women. Bradley Women’s Basketball is primed to take the next step and I am honored to be entrusted with that challenge.”
And later, a quote from Marquette head coach Cara Consuegra:
“Chaia Meier is the kind of coach every program hopes to find — someone who is not only exceptional at what she does on the court, but an even better person off of it. She understands what it takes to build a program the right way and to win consistently. Chaia invests deeply in people — she builds genuine relationships, cares about the growth and development of her players, and creates a culture that lasts. She’s incredibly loyal, and that shows in the trust and respect she earns everywhere she goes. Bradley is getting a tremendous leader who will elevate the program in every way.”
Meier was hired at Marquette in early June of 2024, joining carry over assistant Khadijah Rushdan from the Megan Duffy era and continuing Consuegra assistant Deont’a McChester on the first staff at the McGuire Center after the coaching change. She came to Marquette after breaking the all-time wins record at Edgewood College in Madison with a record of 104-95 in eight seasons. Marquette was her first job at the Division 1 level after leading the Division 3 Edgewood team, as well as head coaching stops at Grace University and Moody Bible Institute, both of which weren’t NCAA affiliated outfits.
Now she makes a pair of head coaches at Bradley with Marquette connections, as MU men’s basketball star Brian Wardle has been leading the men’s team in Peoria since 2015. Meier will be taking over a Bradley squad because Kate Popovec-Goss took the Boston College job after leading the Braves to their first 20 win season since 2019-20. Bradley has been to the NCAA tournament just once in program history, back in 2021 when Andrea Gorski guided them to a 17-12 record overall but secured a Missouri Valley Conference tournament title to earn a #11 seed that year.
As for what it means for Cara Consuegra and the Golden Eagles, that’s kind of up in the air a little bit. After all, McChester remains on the staff, and thanks to a little bit of NCAA rule changing, Consuegra has added Sam Logic and Michael Garven to the staff with the title of assistant coach. That would seem to indicate that Consuegra isn’t and shouldn’t be in much of a hurry to replace Meier in terms of manpower, even with the transfer portal set to open up and the Golden Eagles in need of four players just to be able to go five-on-five in practice until Se’Crette Carter enrolls at some point over the summer.
However, we do have to ask the question of exactly how many assistants is Consuegra looking to hire? After all, Khadijah Rushdan just… kind of… disappeared from the team and the official roster with no fanfare in late January/early February. We haven’t gotten any assistant hiring news since the 2025-26 Marquette season ended in the Big East tournament quarterfinals, which makes you wonder if Consuegra isn’t going to hire anyone to replace Rushdan. Now with Meier gone, it would seem likely that she’ll want at least one more assistant on staff if she had wanted five assistants at this time a year ago and is now down to just three.
Tbere’s still a bit of coaching carousel to go around, so we’re still in a pretty solid “hire an assistant” window for the time being. The only question is whether Consuegra is going to focus on that or focus on getting her roster up to a competitive level…
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