USF names Kristy Curry as next women’s basketball coach

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TAMPA (AP) — Kristy Curry was named the new women's basketball coach at South Florida on Tuesday.

Curry had been head coach at Alabama for the past 13 seasons, leading the Crimson Tide to the NCAA tournament in five of the last six seasons.

She's taking over for Michele Woods-Baxter, who was USF's interim coach last season and led the team to a 20-12 record, 13-5 in the American Conference. Jose Fernandez, who spent the past 25 seasons coaching women's hoops at USF, was hired to coach the WNBA's Dallas Wings in October.

Curry's Alabama teams posted 20-win seasons in each of the last five years. The Crimson Tide went 24-11 this past season and made the tournament as the No. 6 seed, falling to No. 3 seed Louisville in the second round.

Curry will be leading her fourth program after previous stops at Purdue (1999-2006), Texas Tech (2006-13) and Alabama (2013-26). She led each team to the NCAA tournament and coached Purdue in the 2001 national championship game. The Boilermakers lost to Notre Dame.

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This story has been corrected to clarify that Purdue reached the national championship game but did not win the championship.

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness