Eagle women's basketball adds two to coaching staff

CHENEY – Eastern Washington University head women’s basketball coach Wendy Schuller has added two new additions to her coaching staff, as announced in an Oct. 20 news release. Both serving in assistant coaching roles, Shannon Donegan and Nicole Mitchell bring local and national success to the program. 

“We are excited to welcome Nicole and Shannon to the Eagle family,” Schuller said in the release. “Both women come to us with great backgrounds, high basketball IQs and have reputations as hard workers. The thing that stood out to me was their ability to be extremely relational. I know they will be tremendous resources for our young ladies and represent Eagle women’s basketball in a very positive manner.”  

Donegan makes the quick hop to Cheney after three seasons at Gonzaga where she served as the director of women’s basketball operations. At GU, Donegan helped guide the Bulldogs to an 84-14 overall record, two trips to the NCAA tournament and three West Coast Conference regular season championships.

Working with head coach Lisa Fortier, Donegan also helped coach 13 All-WCC Team honorees including two Player of the Year recipients. 

Prior to her time with the Bulldogs, she had a four-year stint at Saint Mary’s College of California where she was the director of women’s basketball operations and the video coordinator. 

Donegan began her coaching career in 2011 at Germantown Friends High School in Philadelphia, Pa., as the girls’ varsity coach where she helped improve the team’s league record from 6-12 overall to 11-6. 

She earned her bachelor of science in athletic training in May 2012 from Temple University before moving on to get her master’s in sport management from the University of San Francisco in May of 2015. 

Mitchell heads to Eastern Washington after two seasons at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, La., where she served as an assistant coach before moving in to the recruiting coordinator role. 

Mitchell was a student-athlete at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va., where she was a three-time all-conference selection and finished her career 13th all-time in scoring with 1,262 points. After her time at CNU as a student-athlete, she moved on to coach the Fairfax Stars AAU team and was the Hood College (Frederick, Md.) assistant women’s basketball coach. 

In 2016, Mitchell headed back to CNU, this time as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. She guided the Captains to an NCAA Final Four appearance with a 29-3 overall record. 

She graduated from CNU in 2014 with a bachelor of arts in sociology and two minors. She received her master’s degree in human sciences in 2016 from Hood College.