Middleton played for South Carolina, scoring over 1,700 points
She comes with a Division I background as a player and a coach.
Now, Karen Middleton is new head coach of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse women’s basketball team.
Middleton’s last coaching stint came last season at Cal State Fullerton, where served as the associate head coach. Before that she served as assistants at Western Carolina (six seasons), the University of Illinois (two seasons) and Stanford (10 seasons dating back to 1997).
Middleton played basketball for South Carolina, where she finished with over 1,700 career points and set a single-season record with 115 3-pointers.
As for what Middleton-coached teams do best: “Everybody wants to be uptempo,” she said. “For us, we’re going to have to see, personnel wise, who we have and what are strengths are going to be. Defensively, my teams have always been really strong – a lot of man-to-man but mix some zones, mix some presses.”
Her next step will, of course be hiring a staff and catching up on the recruiting trail.
Middleton takes over for Lois Heeren, who resigned after 17 seasons. Heeren finished with a 209-226 record overall and six winning seasons – five in a row from 2007-2012.