Houston Comets will keep Connecticut Sun head coach Rachid Meziane
· Yahoo Sports
The Houston Comets already have their new coach.
Comets general manager Morgan Tuck told USA TODAY Sports Connecticut Sun head coach Rachid Meziane, who led the Sun's final two seasons in Connecticut, is relocating with the franchise to Houston for the 2027 WNBA season and will retain his role.
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"Our plan is to keep Rachid and that he'll be with us next year," Tuck said in an interview with USA TODAY Sports. "We're kind of evaluating and still working through what all of our staff will look like. The biggest thing for us, though, is making sure that we're putting the best staff and the best group together so that we can really be a good team next year, right? We want to be a playoff team. We want to have a big turnaround from where we've been the last couple years."
Meziane was hired to coach the Sun ahead of the 2025 season with the organization in rebuild mode. Connecticut went 11-33 in each of his two seasons on the job, finishing as a bottom-three team in the standings in both years.
Tuck and Sun president Jennifer Rizzotti, who have both worked for the Sun since 2021, are retaining their roles with the Comets as well.
"We had terrific exit interviews with the players and the positivity that they had about the coaching staff, the support staff, the operations staff, and Morgan and the leadership," Rizzotti told USA TODAY Sports. "I think that made us feel like we had taken some pretty significant steps forward that was going to pay off for us pretty quickly once we made that move to Houston."
Meziane's coaching staff during the 2026 season included associate head coach Roneeka Hodges, assistant coach Pascal Angillis and assistant coach Ashlee McGee. It is unclear whether Hodges, Angillis and McGee are joining the Comets.
"Our staff will look very familiar and very similar (to last season) because I think we have to be able to continue the work that we're doing and not always start over," Tuck said. "But ... still evaluating and seeing where we can make some changes and tweaks that can help us make sure that we're keeping a really good edge to make sure we stay really competitive."
The Sun had enjoyed eight consecutive trips to the playoffs under the direction of previous coaches Curt Miller and Stephanie White from 2017 through 2024, but when White left to go coach the Indiana Fever, several star players — including All-Stars Alyssa Thomas and DeWanna Bonner — departed as well. The Sun also traded away DiJonai Carrington and Ty Harris, allowed Brionna Jones to leave in free agency and left Veronica Burton unprotected in the expansion draft for the Golden State Valkyries.
Those moves sent the organization into a full rebuild with young rosters and Meziane, the first European-born head coach in the WNBA, at the helm. The Frenchman previously coached for three clubs in the French league and guided Villeneuve-d'Ascq to the championship in 2024. Meziane was also previously the head coach of the Belgian national team, coaching them to the EuroBasket championship in 2023 and a fourth-place finish at the Olympics in 2024.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Houston Comets will keep Connecticut Sun head coach Rachid Meziane