As I am sure you are well aware by now, Yvonne Sanchez was let go after five years as the head coach of the UNM women’s basketball team. She had her share of detractors when she was hired and later when she was extended, but I believe that it was simply a good hire that didn’t work out and that it was the right call to give her an extension. Clearly, the last five years haven’t gone as planned, neither for us as fans or for Coach Sanchez herself, which is what led to AD Paul Krebs deciding that a change needed to take place. While we don’t know what the future holds for the team right now, it is clear that Coach Sanchez helped mold the program to where it is today and helped create high expectations for both herself and every coach who follows her.
First and foremost, Coach Sanchez is a New Mexican through and through. She started to make a name for herself in the area when she starred at Eldorado for Coach Flanagan back in the 80’s, which led to her playing college ball at U.S. International University (now Alliant International University). After she finished college, she came back to New Mexico to become an assistant at NMSU from 1993-1999. After a brief stop at SDSU, she was hired at New Mexico as an assistant in 2000, reuniting her with her high school coach. During her time as an assistant, the Lobos saw their best results, including a trip to the Sweet 16. Coach Flanagan and Sanchez and the rest of the coaching staff built a great program during their time together and made the Lobos nationally-relevant in women’s basketball. Coach Flanagan’s last season was a rough one for the program, as there were a lot of injuries and at the end of the year the whole freshman class ended up leaving the program, leading to Coach Flanagan’s retirement.
After Coach Flanagan’s retirement, Krebs had a decision to make: promote the assistant coach that was a key in making the program into what it is, or make an outside hire. He did the former, hiring Coach Sanchez in hopes of having continuity in the way the program was run and the successes that brought. After all of the injuries and the five transfers left the roster extremely thin, Coach Sanchez was left facing a full rebuild in her first season, in which the Lobos went 11-20 overall and 3-11 in Mountain West play.
It looked like the Lobos were turning the corner in her second season, when the Lobos went 17-14 and 8-8 in Mountain West play, but the year three may have been the most disappointing season of Coach Sanchez’s tenure. The Lobos finished 11-19 overall and 6-12 Mountain West play, despite having a lot of talent returning from the previous season. This made Coach Sanchez’s fourth season all the more important for both renewing fan interest and assuring her bosses that she was the right woman for the job. That fourth season started out rocky, as the Lobos played a really tough non-conference schedule without many positive results. However, people who were paying attention saw the potential of the team when they suffered a close home loss to Stanford, one of the top-ranked teams in the country at the time. Once conference play started, the Lobos got on a roll, going 14-4 in Mountain West play and making the championship game of the conference tournament. The Lobos finished the season 21-13 and made it to the second round of the WBI, making everyone think that this season was going to be even better. Because of this, Paul Krebs rewarded Coach Sanchez with a four-year extension that would keep her under contract through the 2018-2019 season.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned this season. The team, who was picked to finish second in the conference and seemed to have an outside shot of knocking CSU off the top of the standings, instead finished 5th overall, barely missing the play-in games in the conference tournament. This largely seemed to come about because the team couldn’t find any consistency on offense, which negated some solid play on the defensive end and saw them finish 17-15 on the year, including 9-9 in Mountain West play.
Overall Coach Sanchez’s coaching record was 77-81 (.487) and 40-44 (.476) in Conference play. Calling this season a disaster wouldn’t be fair, as it was far from that. However, it was clearly a disappointment. Whatever it was that Krebs was hoping to see out of the team this year, he didn’t see it, which made him decide that a change was necessary.
It’s hard to say at this point whether or not that is the right decision. For one, if we take out the first season, in which she was dealt a poor hand, she was 66-61 (.520) and 37-33 (.529) in conference play. Given what happened to the program right before she got the job, that seems like she at the very least stabilized the program. Over the past couple of years, she has also brought in some exciting new talent, all of who I hope choose to continue their careers as Lobos. However, in a strange way, it was because of the high level of success that the program had under Coach Flanagan with Coach Sanchez as an assistant, combined with the increased funding, resources, and support that success brought, that this program now has such high expectations for itself. At least in Krebs’ eyes, Coach Sanchez didn’t quite meet those expectations that she helped create.
I certainly thank Coach Sanchez for everything she has given us over the past 16 years, as she helped build the program to where it can be. She’s been a big part of the Albuquerque community as a whole for a long time and I hope that she continues to be in the future. I don’t think that this is the end for her, so I wish her well in her future coaching stops.