Women’s basketball Head Coach Ganiyat Adeduntan said she will focus on communication, competitiveness and energy in her quest to build a winning program at her introductory event Tuesday.

Officials announced Adeduntan, the former head coach at Colgate University, as women’s basketball’s head coach in March, following Caroline McCombs’ departure from the role. In four years at the helm of the Raiders’ program, the team increased their win total each season from six in her first season to 23 this past season — the most in program history.

In a speech to players, staff members and program supporters in the Charles E. Smith Center’s Tin Tabernacle Club, Adeduntan said she is “here to win.”

“Saying that doesn’t make me nervous, it motivates me,” Adeduntan said. “So I promise to stay motivated, to use my pursuit of excellence to drive me every single day, to use my passion, intensity and thoroughness and preparation to boost my confidence.”

At the event, Director of Athletics Michael Lipitz said women’s basketball’s history as GW’s “most successful program,” prompted him to want to find a coach to “continue to embrace the expectation to compete for titles and to play in March.”

“So as we looked for the next leader of this very, very proud program, we were looking for someone truly exceptional, a coach with a proven track record of competitive excellence and a commitment to fostering the academic success of our student athletes,” Lipitz said at the event.

Adeduntan’s ascension to head coach marks a return to Foggy Bottom, serving as an assistant coach with the team from 2017 through 2021 before taking the head coaching role at Colgate, winning two Atlantic 10 championships during her tenure. As a student-athlete, she played at Florida State University, where she earned All-ACC Academic honors in all four years. 

In her speech, Adeduntan said that the support of the University’s administration, prime location and basketball-focused conference made the head coaching gig an “incredible opportunity.”

“This is a place that has great people. seeing familiar faces, full of smiles and genuine support already makes me feel right at home,” Adeduntan said.

This past season, the Revolutionaries finished 5-13 in the A-10 and 13-18 overall. As the 12th seed in the A-10 tournament, they defeated Loyola Chicago 65-44 in the first round before falling 52-41 to Rhode Island in the next round. 

In an interview, Adeduntan said she has been spending the past few weeks building a staff. She said she is “almost done” with finalizing it, and she was looking for people who understood the expectations of coaching at “one of, if not the best mid-major job.”

“So I needed people that had experience because we’re not trying to do this thing in four or five like we’re trying to do this thing now,” she said.

Adeduntan said she has been looking to recruit in addition to getting to know players already on the team.

Adeduntan will retain 2025 All-Rookie Team member freshman guard Gabby Reynolds, who averaged 10.5 points per game in her first year. The team will be without leading scorer guard Makayla Andrews, who in her graduate season averaged a team-high 11.6 points per game and finished 23rd in the conference in scoring.  

“I think the players are here, they’re great people and we want to play a certain type of way,” she said. “So we’re trying to figure out, what’s going to complement, who to bring in and who’s going to help us do this thing quickly?”

Adeduntan said the culture she wants to bring to this team revolves around winning games and retaining a “we-over-me” attitude both on the court and in the community. 

“Winning is habit,” she said. “It is an all-the-time thing in the way we bring to life our culture, the way we create a positive environment where negativity cannot grow, the way we represent ourselves on and off the court, in the classroom, in the community, the way we walk the streets of Foggy Bottom, understanding that this is bigger than us individually.”

Adeduntan said in her speech she intends to run an up-tempo pace with strong defensive structure. 

Last season, the Revs allowed an average of 61.3 points per game in conference play, which placed them in seventh place in this statistic. 

“We will defend with a mentality to be destructive,” Adeduntan said. “We will hunt great always and play an up-tempo, fast-paced and space offense where our players play to their strengths. We will emphasize and value the intangibles that we call champion plays.”

Adeduntan said the team’s number one core value is love and wants all her players to be treated as people, loved for who they are instead of what they do.

Three “absolutes” will also be incorporated into Adeduntan’s Revs: communication, competitiveness and energy and enthusiasm, she said. Adeduntan said the values will define her squad and be lessons the team will take into their lives post-basketball. 

“We don’t want to be good. We want to be great,” Adeduntan said.