JR Payne

Ali-Marie "JR" Payne (born May 27, 1977)[1] is an American college basketball coach who is currently head coach at Colorado.

JR Payne
Current position
TitleHead coach
TeamColorado
ConferencePac-12
Record60–61 (.496)
Biographical details
Born (1977-05-27) May 27, 1977
Jackson, Tennessee
Playing career
1995–1999Saint Mary's
Position(s)Guard
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
2000–2005Gonzaga (asst.)
2005–2008Boise State (asst.)
2008–2009Santa Clara (asst.)
2009–2014Southern Utah
2014–2016Santa Clara
2016–presentColorado
Head coaching record
Overall161–174 (.481)

Early life and education

Ali-Marie Payne was born in Jackson, Tennessee and raised in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Payne explained her nickname JR: "My Dad used to watch Dallas, and J. R. Ewing was a tough guy, so he started calling me J.R."[2] She attended Windsor Secondary School in North Vancouver.[3]

Payne attended Saint Mary's College, where she would play point guard for the Saint Mary's Gaels from 1995 to 1999. During her senior season, Payne helped lead the Gaels to their first ever NCAA Tournament appearance. She earned two first-team All-West Coast Conference honor. In 1999, Payne graduated from Saint Mary's with a degree in French, then attended San Francisco State University for a year for graduate school.[3][4]

Coaching career

Gonzaga Bulldogs Assistant Coach (2000-2005)

In 2000, Payne began her women's basketball coaching career at Gonzaga under Kelly Graves. The team improved from five wins in 2000–01 to 28 wins in the 2004-05 season, including a perfect record in West Coast Conference play. Payne helped recruit guard Shannon Mathews, who would become the first All-American in program history.[5]

Boise State Broncos Assistant Coach (2005-2009)

In 2005, Payne became an assistant coach at Boise State under Gordy Presnell. During her time as assistant, Boise State won Western Athletic Conference titles two of her three years and made the NCAA Tournament. Boise State finished 24-8 twice in a row, including a perfect 14-0 home record in the 2007-08 season.[5]

Southern Utah Thunderbirds Head Coach (2009-2014)

In 2009, JR Payne got her first head coaching position, at Southern Utah. In five seasons, Payne led Southern Utah to a record 23-win season, Big Sky Conference regular season co-championship, and first-ever postseason appearance in program history in the 2014 Women's National Invitation Tournament.[6]

Santa Clara Broncos Head Coach (2014-2016)

On April 6, 2014, Payne became head coach at Santa Clara.[7] Payne was head coach at Santa Clara for two seasons. In the 2015–16 season, the Santa Clara Broncos made the WNIT returned to the postseason for the first time in ten years.[8] Following Santa Clara's exit from the WNIT, Payne was offered the Head Coach position at the University of Colorado-Boulder (Pac-12), The University of Arizona (Pac-12), and the University of New Mexico (Mountain West).[9]

Colorado Buffaloes Head Coach (2016-present)

On March 28, 2016, Payne became head coach at Colorado.[10] The eighth head coach in program history, Payne replaced Linda Lappe, who was fired after only managing only a career 33-57 (.367) record in Pac-12 play. JR Payne inherited a program that only finished 7-23 (2-16 Pac-12) in Lappe's final season.[11]

JR Payne inherited a program that had a lack of player talent.
The Buffs were only 14-58 (.194) in the last four years of Linda Lappe's coaching tenure in Pac-12 play, despite having the program's All-Time assists leader in each year during that time frame.
Colorado finished the 2018-19 season with a 2-16 Pac-12 record.
In it 45 years history, it marked the fifth time that the Buffs failed to win at least three conference games.
Payne's 2018-19 Colorado team began Pac-12 conference play 0-11, the worst start to conference play in program history.[12]
The 102-43 loss at Oregon was the Buffs' worst loss since 1984 and it was the 4th worst loss in program history.[12]

Prior to the start of the 2019-20 season, the Buffs was anticipated to continue to struggle, and were picked to finish last place in the Pac-12 Women's Basketball Coaches poll by fellow Pac-12 coaches.[13]
Yet, Payne and her staff invested in completely remaking the culture of the Colorado Buffs women's basketball team and the team bought in.[14]
The Buffs finally turned the corner from the program's struggles to play at a competitive level within the Pac-12 conference and jumped straight to playing competitively against the top nationally ranked teams within the conference.
The Buffs put a scare into #6 ranked Stanford, taking the Cardinal to overtime.[15]
Colorado put a scare into #8 ranked UCLA, having a chance to tie the game on the last possession.[16]
Colorado, once again, played competitively against Stanford, but lost on a half court buzzer beater on a crucial turnover.[17]
Colorado upset #11th ranked Arizona on Feb 23, 2020 to get their fifth Pac-12 win on the season. It marked the first win over a ranked opponent since 2016 and stopped a 32 games losing streak against ranked opponents.[18]

Personal life

She is married to assistant coach Toriano Towns and they have three children together: Aliyah, Jordan, and Jaxton.

Head coaching record
Statistics overview
Season Team Overall Conference Standing Postseason
Southern Utah Thunderbirds (Summit League) (2009–2012)
2009–10 Southern Utah 7–235–138th
2010–11 Southern Utah 16–1410–85th
2011–12 Southern Utah 6–232–1610th
Southern Utah: 29–60 (.326)17–37 (.315)
Southern Utah Thunderbirds (Big Sky Conference) (2012–2014)
2012–13 Southern Utah 15–169–117th
2013–14 Southern Utah 23–1015–5T–1stWNIT Second Round
Southern Utah: 38–26 (.594)24–16 (.600)
Santa Clara Broncos (West Coast Conference) (2014–2016)
2014–15 Santa Clara 11–185–137th
2015–16 Santa Clara 23–913–5T–3rdWNIT First Round
Santa Clara: 34–27 (.557)18–18 (.500)
Colorado Buffaloes (Pac-12 Conference) (2016–2020)
2016–17 Colorado 17–165–13T–9thWNIT Third Round
2017–18 Colorado 15–165–139th
2018–19 Colorado 12-182-1612th
2019–20 Colorado 16-115-11
Colorado: 60–61 (.496)17–53 (.243)
Total:161–174 (.481)

      National champion         Postseason invitational champion  
      Conference regular season champion         Conference regular season and conference tournament champion
      Division regular season champion       Division regular season and conference tournament champion
      Conference tournament champion

)

gollark: The per-category/genre ones aren't.
gollark: So I could probably say "osmarks internet radio™ - 5000 listeners" and appear at the top of the list for a bit, probably for a few days until someone noticed.
gollark: I found the code for submitting to it in the icecast source tree.
gollark: Icecast has a public icecast directory and apparently it doesn't actually have any mechanism to check that your submission is, you know, *true*.
gollark: I used icecast briefly due to issues with mpd streaming to a Discord bot but it was bad.

References
  1. "J.R. Payne". Gonzaga University. Archived from the original on March 29, 2005. Retrieved July 6, 2016.
  2. "Payne Named Women's Basketball Coach". University of Colorado. March 28, 2016. Retrieved July 5, 2016.
  3. "JR Payne Named Santa Clara University Women's Basketball Coach". WCC Sports. Retrieved April 6, 2014.
  4. "J.R. Payne". Gonzaga University. Archived from the original on May 25, 2001.
  5. "JR Payne Southern Utah coaching profile". Southern Utah University. Archived from the original on March 8, 2016. Retrieved July 4, 2018.
  6. "JR Payne". University of Colorado. Retrieved July 5, 2016.
  7. "JR Payne is new Santa Clara women's basketball coach". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved April 6, 2014.
  8. "Season Ends for Women's Basketball After Loss in First Round of WNIT". Santa Clara University. 2016-03-18. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  9. "Sources: Payne hired as Colorado's next coach". Swish Appeal. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  10. Howell, Brian (2016-03-28). "CU women's basketball: Buffs to hire JR Payne as head coach". BuffZone.com. Retrieved 2016-07-06.
  11. "Colorado names JR Payne to take helm of women's basketball program". www.denverpost.com. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  12. "CU Buffs women dominated by Oregon Ducks".
  13. "CU Buffs picked 12th by Pac-12 coaches in women's basketball".
  14. "Buffs Finding the Right Chemistry".
  15. "Stanford survives upset-minded Colorado in an overtime thriller".
  16. "No. 8/9 UCLA Edges Colorado in Game of Runs".
  17. "No. 8 Stanford stuns CU Buffs women's basketball on 40-foot buzzer-beater".
  18. "CU Buffs women upset No. 11 Arizona".
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.