USA women’s basketball coach Fowler out after 10 seasons
South Alabama women’s basketball coach Terry Fowler won’t return next season, it was announced Wednesday.
Fowler spent 10 seasons with the Jaguars, posting a 129-173 overall record. South Alabama went 7-23 this season, losing to Georgia State 59-44 in the first round of the Sun Belt Conference tournament on Tuesday.
“Terry has served the University with distinction and always operated with the well-being of his student-athletes at the forefront of his actions,” South Alabama athletics director Joel Erdmann said. “He has positively impacted all of us, we thank him and wish him all the best moving forward.”
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Fowler’s best season came in 2018-19, when the Jaguars posted a 25-11 record and reached the Sun Belt Conference championship game before advancing to the second round of the Women’s NIT. South Alabama went 21-13 and reached the Final Four of the Women’s Basketball Invitational the previous season.
South Alabama slipped to 16-16 in 2019-20, then 13-13 the following year. The last two seasons have been dreadful, with records of 8-18 and 7-23.
South Alabama won just three Sun Belt Conference games this past season, though one of them was a 60-59 victory over arch-rival Troy last Friday at the Mitchell Center. Kelsey Thompson, the Sun Belt Freshman of the Year, hit a buzzer-beating shot to give the Jaguars the victory in their final regular-season game.
Fowler, a Jackson, Tenn., native, played college basketball on the small-college level in his home state and has a master’s degree from the United States Sports Academy in Daphne. He was an assistant coach at South Alabama and Spring Hill, and also later head coach at Spring Hill and North Alabama before being hired to lead the Jaguars in April 2013.
South Alabama has played women’s basketball since 1981, but has just one NCAA tournament appearance, a first-round exit under coach Charlie Branum in 1987. Rick Pietri won 220 games in 13 seasons beginning in 2000, twice taking the Jaguars to the Women’s NIT.