Paige Bueckers entered the WNBA used to winning and playing for one of the best coaches in the college game. In the 2024-25 season, Bueckers and her UConn championship squad only lost three games. The previous season, they lost just six games. That success is in large part due to coach Geno Auriemma, who has built a championship culture that many of the best players want to play for and molded some of the brightest WNBA stars. With 12 NCAA championships, Auriemma leads all head coaches in women’s and men’s college basketball.
Going from UConn and Coach Auriemma to a struggling Dallas Wings franchise with a rookie head coach must have been quite the adjustment for Bueckers. The Wings won only 10 games, and Chris Koclanes never quite established himself as one of the more promising rookie head coaches in the league. Hiring Koclanes was a gamble and it simply didn’t pay off.
On Tuesday, the Wings announced that they had parted ways with Koclanes—not long after the Liberty made the perfect coach to replace him available. After a disappointing first-round exit, the Liberty didn’t renew Sandy Brondello’s contract. The Wings have the perfect opportunity to rectify their first big mistake of the Paige Bueckers era and hire the kind of coach you want around star players.
Sandy Brondello is a championship coach
One thing the Wings can do to make Paige Bueckers’s early WNBA career as successful as possible is to hire an experienced championship coach. Brondello is just that. After playing in the WNBA for five seasons, Brondello began her coaching career as an assistant coach with the San Antonio Silver Stars in 2005 and never left the WNBA coaching ranks.
Over 13 seasons as a head coach, Brondello compiled a 269-181 record and won two championships—one with the Phoenix Mercury in 2014 and one with the Liberty in 2024.
She is one of the most decorated and experienced coaches available. Hiring her would bring the foundation of a winning culture and cohesive system to Dallas, and that is what they need to ensure a successful new era focused on Paige Bueckers. Brondello may not know much about leading a rebuilding team, but she knows how to coach stars.
Hiring a better coach is just one of many steps the Wings must take
Between this year’s rookies and next year’s lottery pick, the Wings will have a ton of young talent going into the next season. While that is exciting, Dallas is still far from being a contender. Hiring a more experienced head coach is only one of many things the Wings must do before they can build a truly competitive team around Bueckers. She also needs to be surrounded by better role players and high-level veterans.
Hiring a coach like Brondello could make Dallas a more interesting destination for free agents. It would also send the right message to Arike Ogunbowale. The four-time All-Star has been very patient with the Wings, playing under four head coaches since 2019. If she decides to stay and play for a fifth head coach, it better be a coach who can help her win.