Cheryl Reeve Named 2020 WNBA Coach of the Year

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL – The WNBA announced today that Minnesota Lynx Head Coach and General Manager Cheryl Reeve is the recipient of the 2020 WNBA Coach of the Year Award. Reeve received 25 votes from a national panel of 47 sportswriters and broadcasters. This is Reeve’s third Coach of the Year honor and the fourth time a Lynx coach has been named Coach of the Year (Suzie McConnell Serio, 2004). She ties Van Chancellor (1997-98-99) and Mike Thibault (2006-08-13) for the most in WNBA history.  

Under Reeve’s tutelage, the Lynx have compiled 232 wins over the last 10 seasons, the most prolific decade run in WNBA history, and have won four WNBA Championships (2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017). Since taking over in 2010, Reeve’s 67.7% winning percentage (245–117) ranks first in league history. She is one of only two coaches to win over 60% of their regular season games (Chancellor, 65.5%) and has also recorded the most wins (40) and highest winning percentage (70.2%) in WNBA Playoff history. 

The Lynx finished the 2020 regular season with a 14-8 record, earning the No. 4 seed in the WNBA Playoffs despite playing the final 15 games without center Sylvia Fowles. Six different Minnesota players scored 25 or more points in a game (Rachel Banham, Lexie Brown, Bridget Carleton, Napheesa Collier, Crystal Dangerfield and Damiris Dantas), the top one-year total by any team in league history. The Lynx posted six double-digit comeback wins, matching 2015 for the club record in that category. This season also saw four Lynx players finishing among the league’s top 15 in three-point accuracy, including Rachel Banham (fourth, 47.2%) and Bridget Carleton (seventh, 45.7%), who both eclipsed Maya Moore’s previous franchise record for single-season accuracy (45.3% in 2013).  

Reeve’s previous WNBA Coach of the Year honors came in 2011, when Minnesota compiled a 27-7 record and proceeded to win its first championship, and 2016, when the Lynx won a franchise-record 28 games and advanced to the WNBA Finals for the fifth time in six years. 

Prior to reaching the WNBA, the former Rhodes Scholar nominee and basketball star at Philadelphia’s La Salle University spent 12 years at the collegiate level, including head coaching roles at Indiana State and George Washington. She then moved to the WNBA where she served stints as an assistant under Anne Donovan in Charlotte (2001-02, 2004-05) and Dan Hughes in Cleveland (2003), laying the foundation for an extremely successful four-year tenure as an assistant with Detroit under Bill Laimbeer, where she helped the Shock win WNBA Championships in 2006 and 2008.