Allison Guth was named Yale's Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Women's Basketball at the start of the 2015-16 season. In that time she has led the Bulldogs to some unprecedented achievements, including a school-record 19 wins twice. The Bulldogs ended the 2019-20 season with that record, and qualified for the Ivy League Tournament for the second time in three seasons.
The Bulldogs are developing a history of postseason success under Guth. Yale capped the 2017-18 season by becoming the first Ivy League women's basketball team to win a postseason tournament, claiming the Women's Basketball Invitational with a 54-50 win at Central Arkansas on Mar. 29, 2018. That was Yale's 19th win of the season, establishing a school record.
In addition to coaching, Guth serves as a member of Yale Athletics' Education & Workshops Committee.
Known as a skilled recruiter over her 10-plus years of coaching experience, Guth was named head coach in May of 2015, returning to the Bulldogs after serving as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator from 2010 to 2012. Guth is the 10th head coach in the history of the women’s basketball program.
In 2016-17, Guth's second season as head coach, Guth led the Bulldogs to the team's best win total (15) since 2011-12. That included a convincing 61-48 win vs. Penn -- the Quakers' only league loss -- and a thrilling 57-52 win vs. archrival Harvard. The Bulldogs played a challenging schedule, facing five teams that made the NCAA Tournament the previous season -- including Stanford, ranked No. 13.
In her first season as head coach, Guth led Yale to a 14-17 record (5-9 Ivy). The Bulldogs finished the season on a three-game winning streak.
Multiple Bulldogs have earned individual accolades during Guth's tenure as head coach, including two Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year selections (2016-17 Tamara Simpson, 2017-18 Tamara Simpson), three first team All-Ivy League selections (2017-18 Jen Berkowitz, 2018-19 Roxy Barahman, 2019-20 Roxy Barahman (unanimous)), three second team All-Ivy League selections (2015-16 Nyasha Sarju, 2017-18 Tamara Simpson, 2019-20 Camilla Emsbo) and two honorable mention All-Ivy League selections (2016-17 Jen Berkowitz, 2017-18 Roxy Barahman).
In addition to her first team All-Ivy honor from the Ivy League in 2017-18, Jen Berkowitz '18 won Yale's Nellie Pratt Elliot Award, the most prestigious award bestowed to a female athlete in the Yale senior class.
Guth develops leaders around her, as evidenced by the selection of then-assistant coach Melissa D'Amico for the WBCA's "Thirty Under 30" list of up-and-coming coaches in 2015-16. Additionally, Whitney Wyckoff '16 was selected for the WBCA's "So You Want to be a Coach" program.
Recruiting has remained a strong suit for the Bulldogs with Guth as head coach. They have signed several noteworthy players such as five-star ESPN recruit Camilla Emsbo '22, three-star ESPN recruit Megan Gorman '20, three-star Prospect Nation recruit Tori Andrew '21 and Texas Association of Basketball Coaches Large Private Player of the Year Ellen Margaret Andrews '21.
Yale's players have also thrived academically under Guth's leadership, with six Academic All-Ivy honorees (Wyckoff in 2016, Lena Munzer '17 in 2017, Berkowitz in 2018, Gorman in 2019 and Gorman and Ellen Margaret Andrews '20 in 2020). The team as a whole received the NCAA's Public Recognition Award in 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 for posting an Academic Progress Rate score in top 10 percent of the sport. Gorman was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Andrews was a CoSIDA Academic All-District selection in 2019-20.
Prior to being named Yale’s head coach, Guth spent three seasons at Northwestern as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, helping turn the women’s basketball team into a national power under head coach Joe McKeown. The Wildcats went 23-9 (12-6 Big Ten) and qualified for an NCAA Tournament berth for the first time since 1997.
In her short time as a recruiting coordinator in Evanston, Guth contributed to an already top recruiting class in the country during the 2012-13 season. When that highly-ranked recruiting class arrived in Evanston, Guth helped develop Nia Coffey into a First Team All-Big Ten honoree, Christen Inman into one of the team's leading scorers and point guard Ashley Deary into an All-Big Ten honoree and 2014 Nancy Lieberman Award finalist. She also helped guide a young Wildcats squad that started three true freshmen, a sophomore and a junior to three wins over top 25 opponents along with a run in the 2014 WNIT where the Wildcats reached the third round and accumulated 17 wins along the way.
Guth was an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Yale for two seasons under former head coach Chris Gobrecht. She was named an assistant coach in July 2010 after two seasons as the Director of Basketball Operations for the DePaul University women's basketball team.
As an assistant coach at Yale, Guth was in charge of coordinating all recruiting efforts for the women's basketball program as well as all game preparations and player development. She also served as a Resident Fellow for Yale's new residence hall (Swing Space), where she was charged with being a mentor to the students who lived there.
During her first stint in New Haven, Guth was instrumental in Yale's resurgence as a contender for the Ivy League championship. She helped guide the Bulldogs to their best two-year record in 18 years and the most Ivy League wins in a two-year span in the program's history (18; 10-4 in 2010-11, 8-6 in 2011-12).
Guth coached two All-Ivy League First Team honorees (Megan Vasquez '13 in 2010-11 and 2011-12), an All-Ivy Rookie of the Year (Halejian, 2011-12), an All-Ivy Second Team honoree (Mady Gobrecht '11, 2010-11), two All-Ivy Honorable Mention players (Michelle Cashen '12 in 2010-11 and 2011-12) and an All-Ivy Rookie Team honoree (Janna Graf '14, 2010-11). She recruited Halejian, who finished her Yale career as the 10th leading scorer in program history.
Guth helped lead the Bulldogs to a 14-15 finish in 2010-11, which included a second-place 10-4 finish in the Ivy League standings, Yale's first sweep of Harvard since 1993-94 and the program's first-ever appearance in the WNIT. Yale finished tied for second in the Ivy League with Harvard, with both teams closing the season with identical 10-4 records in League play. It was Yale's highest finish in the Ivy League standings since the 1988-89 season, the only other season that Yale finished Ivy play with a 10-4 mark. Yale earned the Ivy's automatic berth in the WNIT by sweeping Harvard during the regular season.
Guth was also a key factor in Yale's 16-12 finish in 2011-12, which was the most wins in the program's history since 1993-94 and just the third time the program had completed a season with 16 or more victories. Yale finished the season with an 8-6 mark in Ivy League play and went into the final game of the season with a chance to lock up second place in the Ivy League standings for a return to the WNIT.
During her two seasons at DePaul as an assistant coach, Guth handled the Doug Bruno Basketball summer camps, video exchange, scouting and was involved in all on-campus recruiting. She helped DePaul reach the Big East and NCAA tournaments both seasons in Chicago (2008-09, 2009-10).
Guth was a Missouri assistant coach and helped with recruiting for the 2007-08 season. The Tigers pulled off one of the nation's biggest victories with a win over Oklahoma in the first round of the Big 12 Conference Tournament, the first time in Big 12 history that a No. 12 seed defeated a No. 5 seed. She started her coaching career as an assistant at Loyola-Chicago from 2005-07. She also served as recruiting coordinator with the Ramblers and worked with backcourt players.
Guth and her Buffalo Grove (Illinois) High School teammates were inducted into the Illinois Coaches Basketball Association Hall of Fame in April of 2013 for their Class AA state girls basketball championship in 2000.A three-time letterwinner at Illinois, Guth helped the Illini reach the 2003 NCAA Tournament after earning a spot as a walk-on and then earning a scholarship. An Academic All-Big Ten selection, Guth also played a season with the Illinois women's golf team before graduating in 2004. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business before getting her Master's degree in educational leadership from DePaul in 2010.
Allison and her wife, Jessie, are the proud parents of their two sons Ray and Garvey Guth. The Guth family resides in Stoney Creek, Conn.
