Women's Basketball

Bill Carr enters his seventh season as the Santa Clara University women's basketball head coach in 2022-23.

Carr helped the Broncos to 16 wins during the 2021-22 season, their most since 2015-16 season, including eight West Coast Conference victories. During the season, Lindsey VanAllen had one of the best seasons in program history, averaging 19.2 points per game and being named first team all-WCC. She also became the 27th Bronco with 1,000 career points and finished No. 7 on the career scoring list with 1,340. After the season, VanAllen signed a professional contract. Merle Wiehl was also named second team all-WCC after the season.

The Broncos had their best season under Carr during the 2020-21 campaign despite playing home games in Santa Cruz, Calif., for much of the season due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The team went 14-11 and 9-8 in conference action as they earned the fourth seed in the WCC Tournament where they made it to the semifinals for the first time since 2016. Senior Merle Wiehl, named to the WCC All-Tournament team, and junior Lindsey VanAllen were named second team all-WCC. Ashley Hiraki made the all-freshmen team and senior Ashlyn Herlihy took home honorable mention accolades.

Redshirt junior Ashlyn Herlihy earned all-WCC honorable mention during the 2019-20 season as the Broncos won 12 games.

Carr helped three players earn all-WCC honors during the 2018-19 season. Junior guard Tia Hay was named to the second team with redshirt sophomore Ashlyn Herlihy being named honorable mention and Lindsey VanAllen making the all-freshmen squad. The team won 14 games.

In 2017-18, Morgan McGwire was named all-WCC honorable mention under the tutelage of Carr.

During the 2016-17 season, Carr guided the Broncos to 14 wins and nine in WCC play. He coached three all-WCC selections in Lori Parkinson, Marie Bertholdt, and Emily Wolph.

Carr had been a men’s head basketball coach for 11 years and compiled a record of 202-132 (.601) at Point Loma Nazarene, UC San Diego, and Spring Hill College. He has more than 25 years of coaching experience, including extensive West Coast Conference experience, with Division I stops as associate head coach at San Diego and Long Beach State and as an assistant at San Francisco. 

He had spent his last five seasons before coming to Santa Clara as the leader of Point Loma Nazarene. The Sea Lions made the move from NAIA to Division II in 2012 under Carr. Despite these challenges, the PLNU men's basketball program thrived in the five seasons under Carr, posting a record of 81-63 (.563).

The Sea Lions won 20 or more games with Carr at the helm in three of his five seasons and made the playoffs three times. Last season, Carr led PLNU to a 13-14 record and coached the PacWest Freshman of the Year in Josh Rodriguez.

In 2014-15, Carr guided the Sea Lions to a record of 21-8 and a No. 5 seed in the PacWest Championships after posting a 13-7 record in league play. PLNU opened the season with five straight wins to climb to No. 22 in the National Association of Basketball Coaches rankings, marking the first time any Sea Lion team had ever been ranked at the NCAA Division II level.

Carr’s teams at Point Loma recorded a number of benchmarks. In 2014-15 Hayden Lescault was a first team all-PacWest Conference selection, the first such honor in the history of the men's basketball program, while Marek Klassen earned third team accolades. The Sea Lions also finished the year ranked No. 5 nationally in 3-point percentage with a .419 mark from long range. Sam Okhotin led the way by finishing sixth in the nation with a .475 shooting percentage from behind the arc.
 
In 2013-14, Carr led Point Loma to the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) West Region title and National Championship. The Sea Lions entered the tournament as the No. 4 seed before winning all three games in Winona Lake, Ind., to capture the fourth NCCAA men's basketball championship in the history of the school.
 
In 2011-12, Carr was named GSAC Co-Coach of the Year while two of his players, Rhett Beal and Greg Murray, earned all-conference honors. Beal was later named as an honorable mention All-American. The Sea Lions qualified for the NAIA National Championships and notched a 74-44 opening-round win over Texas Wesleyan before falling to top-ranked Shorter.
 
Carr brought more than 20 years of coaching experience when he arrived on campus at Point Loma. He arrived at PLNU from the University of San Diego where he spent four years (2007-11) as associate head coach for the NCAA Division I Toreros.

During Carr’s tenure at USD the Toreros won the WCC Tournament title in 2008 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. USD beat the University of Connecticut in the first round for the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament victory.
 
Prior to USD, Carr was at UC San Diego for three years (2004-07) as head coach. In his second season at the helm, Carr led UCSD to a 15-14 record, marking the school’s first winning season since moving to the NCAA Division II level in 2000.
 
Carr’s resume also includes two seasons as the associate head coach at Long Beach State (2002-04), and three years (1999-2002) as the head coach at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. He accumulated a career mark of 84-23 (.785) at Spring Hill and led the Badgers to two appearances in the NAIA National Tournament, including three "final eight" trips.
 
In his first season Carr led Spring Hill to a 29-8 mark and a Gulf Coast Athletic Conference (GCAC) championship. Carr was named the 1999-2000 GCAC Coach of the Year that season and was a finalist for the NAIA National Coach of the Year.
 
As a player, Carr competed for two seasons (1985-87) at the University of San Francisco under coach Jim Brovelli. His first campaign at USF was the "Back to Basketball" group that marked the restart of the program after a three-year hiatus.
 
Carr earned a degree in accounting at USF and later began his coaching career there, spending nine years as an assistant for Brovelli (1990-95) and Phil Mathews (1995-99). He helped recruit and mentor 10 first team all-WCC performers, including the 1998 and 2000 WCC Freshmen of the Year. USF advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 1998 after winning the West Coast Conference Tournament championship.
 
Bill and his wife, Pam, are the proud parents to three children: Lexi, Madison and Paul. Madison currently attends Santa Clara.