Plans are beginning to take shape for Becky Burke’s first season as head women’s basketball coach at defending Mid-American Conference champion University of Buffalo.
Since taking the job in early April, Burke has built a coaching staff and hit the transfer portal hard to fill a roster that was thinned out when Felisha Legette-Jack left for Syracuse.
Chellia Watson, who was a first-team Big South all-star, followed Burke, the Big South Coach of the Year, from the University of South Carolina Upstate to Buffalo.
Burke brought in Wyatt Foust from Murray State, former University of Louisville teammate Candyce Wheeler from her USC Upstate staff, Asia Dozier from two-time South Carolina state high school champion Cardinal Newman and Erin Sinnott from the University of Minnesota to serve as assistants.
The Bulls added transfers Latrice Perkins from Charleston, Emerita Mashaire from Cincinnati, Ronni Nwora from Saint Louis, Kayla Salmons from Idaho State, Kiara Johnson from Towson, and both Re’Shawna Stone and Zakiyah Winfield from National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II champion Glenville State. Stone was the Division II Player of the Year. Burke also announced the signing of Canadian high school standout Hattie Ogden and Caelan Ellis, who led Georgia high school players in 3-pointers.
Burke, 32, has repeatedly built or rebuilt programs while quickly rising through the college coaching ranks. The Buffalo job will be a different type of assignment for the 2008 Abington Heights graduate.
“It’s obviously different from my past experiences,” Burke said in a phone interview. “But, I’m very thankful and very excited because I feel 100 miles ahead of where I normally am when I take over a program.
“Coach Felisha took some of her players with her to Syracuse and there will be a couple needs to fill, but, as a whole, in terms of what their culture is and what it feels like to win and play in the NCAA Tournament, they’ve already been there and done that.”
After three straight two-year coaching assignments, Burke hopes to settle in now that she is closer to home in the northeast.
“I took a head coaching opportunity at a very early age and it’s been a good thing that I’ve had the opportunity to move on at everywhere I’ve been,” said Burke, who scored more than 2,000 career points and was the state Class 4A Player of the Year as a senior with the Lady Comets. “But I took this job in Buffalo to be there; to plant roots and not only build something, but sustain it and be there to see recruiting classes graduate and have a home base.
“I don’t plan on continuing that trend. I feel like Buffalo will be home for me and I’m excited about it.”
USC Upstate was predicted to finish 10th in the Big South Conference in a preseason coaches’ poll, but wound up third. The Spartans tied program records for conference (14) and overall (22) victories during its Division I era.
That success led to Burke receiving inquiries from multiple programs. She makes the jump from a team that ranked 196th in NCAA Division I RPI rankings to one that was 59th in 2021-22.
Buffalo went 25-9 and reached the NCAA Tournament where it battled Tennessee in an 80-67 loss.
“It was never my goal or something that I said ‘I have to leave Upstate and go pursue other opportunities’,” Burke said. “It is nice when you have success that people come calling. It’s super humbling and I’m just really thankful to have been approached and it worked out perfect.”
The Buffalo program “is in very good hands for years to come,” according to vice president and director of athletics Mark Alnutt.
“Becky is a rising star in our industry and a proven winner which is very apparent at all her previous stops,” he said.
Burke’s head coaching career began when she tarted the program at Emory Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, which followed up a winning debut season with 21 wins in the second season.
NCAA Division II, and a national tournament appearance in her second year, was next when Burke took over at the University of Charleston in West Virginia.
