Darnell Haney, head coach of Georgetown women’s basketball, is about putting in the work, even when no one is watching. Haney spent five years as an assistant coach at Jacksonville and five years as their head coach before getting the call from Tasha Butts to join her staff at Georgetown in the spring of 2023. Their similar philosophies and values appealed to Haney, but little did he know, he would soon have to take on a much larger role within the program.
Georgetown Athletics announced on Sept. 21, 2023 that Butts would be taking time away from the team to focus on her health due to an advanced-stage breast cancer diagnosis in 2021. She died on Oct. 23. Darnell Haney was named interim head coach. The next day, the Hoyas were picked to finish tenth out of eleven teams in the BIG EAST.
It would have been easy, and even understandable, for Haney to dub the season a rebuilding year and do the bare minimum while focusing on his own future—but that’s not his way. “I ain’t know if I was gonna have a job, right? But I just was in the moment,” Haney said at Georgetown’s media day. “I was just thinking about being in that moment at that time, and making sure that we made this program the best program we can make it be.”
His work paid off. Despite a rocky start, the Hoyas finished out the regular season sixth in the BIG EAST. Three players were recognized with postseason awards: Kelsey Ransom was named co-Defensive Player of the Year and First Team All-BIG EAST, Graceann Bennett was given the BIG EAST Sportsmanship Award, and Brianna Scott won the BIG EAST Sixth Woman Award.
The Hoyas went on to upset St. John’s in the quarterfinals of the BIG EAST tournament. On Butts’ birthday, they upset then-ranked Creighton in the semifinals (their first program win over a ranked team since 2016) to advance to the first BIG EAST championship game in team history. This earned them an invite to the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament, where they made it to the second round. They finished the season with their most wins since the 2010-11 campaign. It was the stuff of fairytales, and the higher-ups at Georgetown knew it. In the post-game presser after the UConn loss, a teary Bennett announced that Haney was in talks with Georgetown Athletics to become the head coach.
Over the span of just a few months, Haney had gone from unexpectedly stepping up in a time of grief and uncertainty over his future to achieving unprecedented program success.
How did he do it? By building a program rooted in an “outside dawg” mentality.
“An outside dawg is more than what people think it is,” he told the Voice at BIG EAST Media Day. “You have to be on top of things in all aspects. Classroom, on the floor, you communicate at a high level, you’re about the right things, you come into every single day knowing that you are of royalty and you are part of a royal family that’s going to go out there and compete every single night.”
Haney also credits much of his success to his faith. “I’ve been blessed with being a kind of a problem solver,” he said, “I got to figure out how to get these young women to play at the highest level they can. And I think, you know, with God’s help, I’m able to do it.”
Beyond spirituality, he emphasized his intentional focus on his coaching duties even before Georgetown asked him to become the official head coach. “I tell our young women, we have to be there before we get there,” he said.
He infuses this mentality of preparation, well-roundedness, and integrity into the program and looks for it in his players, too. “When I’m recruiting, if you have a game tomorrow, I may not be going to the game. I’m gonna go to the practice before the game, right? So I’m gonna see who they are when the lights ain’t around,” he said.
This attention shows in the way that Haney speaks about his players. He talks about their leadership capabilities and personal development almost as much as their basketball skills. When asked if he wanted Ransom to step up as a leader after Bennett’s departure, he said that she was already a leader, just in a different way. “I want Kelsey Ransom to continue to be Kelsey Ransom,” he said. “She’s a doer, so she inspires, and I’m excited about her and her growth as a player and her growth as a leader.”
Similarly, he was enthusiastic about the fact that Scott attended a women’s leadership conference and was in good spirits despite her injuries. “We’re making sure that she’s getting both aspects of being a student athlete to help us in our program, and help her as she progresses in her life.”
More telling, perhaps, is the way his players speak about him. “There’s much more to come for Georgetown women’s basketball with coach Haney as head coach,” Bennett said after the UConn loss.
“He brings honesty. He brings energy. He brings a level of faith and gratitude that I don’t know a lot of people in life have,” Ransom told the Voice at BIG EAST Media Day. “He has a joy for living that is admirable, and he inspires me.”
Georgetown is sure to face more tough situations as a program in the coming years. Already this season, Scott is injured indefinitely and an assistant coach will be taking maternity leave after her wife gives birth. But with Haney at the helm, the Hoyas can certainly handle whatever happens next.
“I’m a Miami outside dawg, man. That’s what it always is, always been.”
