Once the Dallas Wings fired Chris Koclanes after just one season, they were immediately connected to Sandy Brondello. As a former player and a championship coach, Brondello seemed like the perfect fit for a team centered around Paige Bueckers. However, Brondello will lead the Toronto Tempo from now on, and the Wings will have to find their next head coach somewhere else.
The Athletic’s Ben Pickman recently reported that Nicki Collen was connected to the Wings. Collen is the current head coach at Baylor University and would be the perfect candidate for a team looking to hire an experienced coach and turn around an abysmal 10-34 record.
Nicki Collen has an impressive coaching resume
Collen checks pretty much all the boxes the Wings should be looking for in their head coaching search. She has experience as a player, spent several years as an assistant coach, proved herself as a coach in the WNBA and NCAA, and has a relationship with Wings GM Curt Miller.
Collen played college basketball at Purdue and Marquette. With Purdue, she won two Big 10 Championships. After she transferred to Marquette, she ranked third in assists in the nation as a senior. Then, she played professionally in Greece, but pivoted to coaching in 2001.
She started her coaching career as an assistant at Colorado State and also worked at Ball State, Louisville, Arkansas, and Florida Gulf Coast before moving on to the WNBA. In 2015, Collen started working as an assistant coach for the Connecticut Sun. Three years later, she took over as the head coach for the Atlanta Dream. In 2021, she moved on to Baylor.
While Collen only compiled a 38-52 overall record as a WNBA head coach, she led the Dream to a winning season in 2018 and was named WNBA Coach of the Year. With Baylor, she has never finished a season with a losing record, amassing 102 wins and 36 losses going into the 2025-26 season.
Collen’s relationship with Curt Miller goes back all the way to 2001 when they were both assistant coaches at Colorado State. In 2015, Collen was an assistant coach on Miller’s staff with the Connecticut Sun.
The Wings have to make the right choice with their next head coach
Chris Koclanes didn’t impress in his first season as a head coach, but there were a lot of reasons for that. The Wings’ roster was anything but cohesive, the team centered around young, inexperienced players, and injuries kept out key pieces for significant time. Plus, he was never really given the chance to get used to his new role. One season is not much time for a rookie head coach to adjust and build a winning system.
However, cycling through head coaches has been a theme for the Wings since 2019. Koclanes was the team’s fourth head coach in seven years. Now that Paige Bueckers, a generational talent, is in Dallas, it is time for the Wings to create some stability and hire a head coach who can establish a lasting system.