Mississippi State assistant coach Michelle Clark-Heard will be leaving the Bulldogs to become the new head coach at Mercer, the Bears’ program announced Friday morning.
Clark-Heard has spent just one season at MSU as an assistant coach and assistant athletic director for women’s basketball. She played at Western Kentucky and began her coaching career with stints as an assistant at Nebraska and Cincinnati before getting her first head coaching gig at Division II Kentucky State.
After five years as an assistant at Louisville, Clark-Heard became the head coach at her alma mater, leading the Hilltoppers to the NCAA Tournament four times in six years. She was not as successful at Cincinnati — the Bearcats won 24 games and made a run in the WNIT in her first season there in 2019 and finished second in their conference with a 22-9 record the following year, but tumbled to losing records in each of the next three campaigns.
Cincinnati fired Clark-Heard following the 2022-23 season after the Bearcats finished 9-21 overall and 2-14 in conference play. Two months later, Bulldogs head coach Sam Purcell hired her in the hybrid coach/assistant AD role.
Mercer, a member of the Southern Conference, reached four straight NCAA Tournaments from 2018-22 but lost in the first round each time, always as a No. 13 seed or lower.
Purcell posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the Bears made a “HOMERUN hire,” adding that Clark-Heard’s “spirit, heart, and love for people are UNMATCHED.”
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