The Wisconsin women's basketball program hired its new head coach yesterday, a move that shocked most and underwhelmed many. It wasn't received with a whole lot of favorable reception from the Wisconsin fans. However, like it or not, Robin Pingeton is the new women's basketball coach for the Wisconsin Badgers. She comes from Mizzou, where she has struggled in the last seven years, and is hoping to revive her career in Madison.
Of course, there are some silver linings with Pingeton, like her P4 experience, her ability to recruit, and, without seeing the details, maybe the price tag. However, Wisconsin insider Evan Flood of 24/7 Sports asked fans to "explain [the hire] to him in NFL terms." One consistent name came up.
Hiring Adam Gase after the Jets years
— Jarrett Guerrera (@JarrettGuerrera) March 25, 2025
Robin Pingeton's hire is being compared to Adam Gase being hired after failing at the New York Jets
Three different people in the thread of that tweet said, "Adam Gase" as their answer. If this is the comparison, it's pretty obvious that fans are not pleased with this hire. Gase is 32–48 in the regular season and 0-1 in the playoffs. As a head coach, he really only had one successful season, his very first one, leading the Dolphins to the playoffs. Then he was fired two years later, and the Jets hired him, where he also failed again.
Gase may not be a fair comparison, as Pingeton has coached for 30 years and for the vast majority of her destinations was very good. Before her time at Missouri, she went 334-157 between St. Ambrose (her first head coaching stop) and Illinois State (her second). From 2015 to 2019, she was an excellent P4 coach at Mizzou; she went 92-40 in that time period. However, it's been 7 years since her last 20-win season.
The comparison may not be exactly right or even fair to Pingeton, but the vibes are not good when a coach leaves a program for being bad to come to another program that has only recently had a reputation of being bad.