Officials on Thursday named Ganiyat Adeduntan the next head coach for women’s basketball.
Adenuntan will take over for former Interim Head Coach Doug Novak, who held the role after former Head Coach Caroline McCombs stepped down on February 24. She has spent the last four seasons as the Colgate University Raiders’ head coach and served on GW’s coaching staff for the prior four seasons.
From 2017 to 2021, the Florida State University alum held an assistant coach position with the Revs and was a part of the team’s Atlantic 10 championship staff between 2017 and 2018.
As a head coach for Colgate, Adeduntan compiled a record of 65-61 over four seasons, including two 20-win campaigns. Her Raiders saw a 10-win increase from her first season to her second, going 6-24 in her first year and 16-14 in her second.
While at Colgate, she oversaw the best record in school history, with the Raiders going 23-9 and set to take on Coppin State in the WNIT on March 22. The Raiders’ appearance in this year’s WNIT marks the team’s second-straight, with Adeduntan’s team making it to the Super Sixteen in the 2023-24 tournament. Her Raiders became the first Patriot League school to make the WNIT in conference history.
Adeduntan signed an extension with Colgate to keep her as the team’s head coach until 2029 before accepting the job with the Revolutionaries, according to her staff profile on the university’s website, which has since gone offline.
Adeduntan said GW offers a “tradition of winning” in women’s basketball, adding that she’s “fired up” to work at a place where women’s basketball can win at the “highest level of competition.”
“I am overjoyed to be the next women’s basketball head coach at George Washington University,” said Adeduntan. “GW holds a special place in my heart, and I am grateful to President Granberg and Michael Lipitz for entrusting me with this program.”
Before joining the Revs staff in 2017, Adeduntan was an assistant coach at Northeastern, helping the Huskies improve from four wins to 15 wins in one season.
Lipitz, the University’s associate vice president and director of athletics, said Adeduntan’s work at Colgate and past positions at GW and Northeastern made her the “right leader” to return women’s basketball to the top of the A-10 and the “national stage.”
“She is a program-builder, evidenced by the remarkable turnaround she engineered at Colgate, an elite recruiter, a relentless competitor, and a skilled tactician and teacher of the game,” Lipitz said. “Moreover, she builds deep, authentic relationships with her student-athletes on- and off-the-court. We’re thrilled to welcome Coach G home to Foggy Bottom.”
