North Texas hires Jason Burton as women's basketball coach
DENTON, Texas (AP) — North Texas hired Jason Burton as its women's basketball coach Monday after he spent the last nine seasons at Texas A&M-Commerce.
Burton replaces Jalie Mitchell, who a week earlier announced her departure after eight seasons coaching her alma mater. Mitchell was 111-127, including an 11-20 record this season.
Texas A&M Commerce was 171-90 under Burton, with the only losing record coming this season when the Lions were 14-19 in the first year of their transition to the NCAA Division I level. They finished 10-8 in Southland Conference games.
The Lions were 69-12 over their last three seasons at the Division II level. They tied a school record for wins when going 28-3 in 2019-20 before the NCAA tourney was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, then went 14-4 in the shortened 2020-21 season, and 27-5 the season after that.
Burton was an assistant men's coach at Commerce from 2007-11. He then spent two years as an assistant coach at Texas State and one year as the boys head coach at McKinney (Texas) Boyd High School before returning to Commerce.
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