Southern Arkansas University Athletics

Adam Collins enters into his fourth season as the head women's basketball coach at Southern Arkansas University. 

Since his arrival in Magnolia, the SAU Women’s Basketball program has undergone an obvious transformation highlighted by a fast, quick-strike style of play purposed to wear down the opposition, create turnovers and unleash what many around the program simply describe as “chaos.”

This past season, Collins admirably navigated the program through the rough and ever-changing waters that was the COVID-19 pandemic which saw nine games deemed a "no contest" due to COVID-19 protocols with more than half of those cancellations coming at no fault of their own. SAU concluded the season in the opening round of the Great American Conference Tournament against Ouachita suffering an 85-84 loss on a shot at the buzzer.

In his first three seasons, Collins has led the program to 24 wins including 17 victories in the 2019-20 season that saw that year’s squad nearly upset top-seeded Southeastern Oklahoma State in the opening round of the GAC Tournament. The 17 wins were the third-most in a single season in the program's Division II Era. SAU produced a 14-win improvement from Collins’ first year when the team managed just three wins in 28 games. That turnaround tabbed Southern Arkansas as the most improved squad that season in all of Division II women’s hoops.

Facilitating that turnaround was the Muleriders’ chaotic press which at season’s end ranked second in the country in total steals (438), steals per game (15.1) and turnovers forced per game (26.59). The Muleriders also ranked fourth in the nation in offensive rebounds per game averaging 18.3.

Under his leadership, Magnolia-native Kisi Young has earned a pair of All-GAC honors which includes second-team plaudits following the shortened 20-21 season, while Ariana Guinn was named an honorable mention honoree this past spring.

Additionally, Collins’ 2019-20 Muleriders established new single-game program records for rebounds (68) and three-pointers (13), while scoring the second-most points in a game with 110 against Texas A&M-Texarkana. That year’s squad also knocked off a pair of nationally-ranked opponents with wins over #18 Harding (76-71) and #21 Southwestern Oklahoma State.

Collins became the seventh head women’s basketball coach in program history at SAU on April 9, 2018. Along with a plethora of experience, Collins brought success to Southern Arkansas as he had won over 200 games, claimed three (3) Coach of the Year awards, and guided three (3) of his teams to conference championships in his 12 years as a head coach prior to his hiring at SAU. The decade before becoming head coach of the Muleriders, Collins was at the helm of a pair of Division II institutions with stints at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin (2008-09 – 2011-12), and most-recently at the University of Charleston (2012-13 – 2017-18).

A third of his seasons as a head coach have yielded 20 or more victories as Collins has achieved the feat five times. Twice, Collins has led his teams to the NCAA National Tournament with his first appearance coming in just his third season at UTPB. That year, his Falcons, who were 2-50 in the two seasons prior to his arrival, won the Heartland Conference Tournament Championship and received an automatic bid to the South Central Region Tournament.

Three years later, and in just his second season at the University of Charleston, Collins’ Golden Eagles earned an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament and the Atlantic Regional after posting a 19-8 regular season that was then followed up with a pair of wins in the Mountain East Conference (MEC) Tournament before falling short in the title game. A year after that, UC claimed a share of the MEC Regular Season title with a 17-5 league mark.

An undergraduate of Charleston Southern University (Charleston, S.C.) Collins began his coaching career at his alma mater, where he was the men's graduate assistant in 1998-99. Collins then went on to coach men's basketball as an assistant at Independence Community College (1999-2000), Howard College (200-01), and Indiana University (Pa.) (2001-03) before a successful two-year stint as head coach at Mercyhurst North East Junior College (2003-05). 

Following that, Collins was a men’s assistant for a year at Great American Conference-rival Henderson State (2005-06), and then became the Director of Operations at UNC-Wilmington (2006-08).

In 2008, Collins began his career as a women’s basketball coach taking over at UTPB where he spent a total of four seasons. In his time at UTPB, Collins went 63-48 (.568) and was the 2011 Heartland Coach of the Year.

After a successful run at UTPB, Collins spent the next six years of his coaching career the University of Charleston where he had three-straight winning seasons and consecutive 20-plus win campaigns. Overall, Collins was 97-82 (.542) at UC.

Collins received a Bachelor of Science in History from Charleston Southern University in 1998, before earning a Master of Science in Sports Studies with an emphasis in Management from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2003.

Collins and his wife Angela have two children, daughter Mia, and son JJ, who is a pitcher on the Mulerider Baseball team.  
 

Collins Career Record
Year	School	Overall Record	Conference Record | Finish	Post-Season / Notes
03-04	Mercyhurst North East JC	23-5	---	WNYAC Regular Season Champions / Region III Tournament Runner-Up / Ranked #10 in final NJCAA Top 25 / NJCAA Region III MBB Coach of the Year
04-05	Mercyhurst North East JC	21-9	---	Region III Tournament Semifinals
08-09	Tex. Permian Basin	7-19	5-9 | T5th (HEART)
09-10	Tex. Permian Basin	16-13	9-5 | 3rd (HEART)	HC Tournament Semifinals
10-11	Tex. Permian Basin	21-8	8-2 | 2nd (HEART)	HC WBB Coach of the Year / HC Tournament Champions / NCAA South Central Region Tournament Appearance
11-12	Tex. Permian Basin	18-8	9-3 | 2nd (HEART)	HC Tournament Opening Round
12-13	Charleston (WV)	16-13	11-11 | 9th (WVIAC)	WVIAC Tournament Semifinals
13-14	Charleston (WV)	21-9	15-7 | 3rd (MEC)	MEC WBB Coach of the Year / MEC Tournament Championship Game / NCAA Atlantic Region Tournament Appearance
14-15	Charleston (WV)	22-7	17-5 | T-1st (MEC)	MEC Tournament Quarterfinals
15-16	Charleston (WV)	13-17	10-12 | T-7th (MEC)	MEC Tournament Quarterfinals
16-17	Charleston (WV)	12-19	9-13 | 8th (MEC)	MEC Tournament Semifinals
17-18	Charleston (WV)	13-17	8-14 | 10th (MEC)	MEC Tournament Quarterfinals
18-19	Southern Arkansas	3-25	2-20 | 12th (GAC)
19-20	Southern Arkansas	17-12	11-11 | 8th (GAC)	GAC Tournament Opening Round
20-21	Southern Arkansas	4-10	3-9 | 5th (GAC East)	GAC Tournament Opening Round
21-22	Southern Arkansas	13-15	8-14 (GAC)
22-23	Southern Arkansas	---	---
Career Total (13 years)		240-206 (.538)	125-135 (.481)	Two NCAA National Tournament appearances / Two Conference Coach of the Year awards / One Conference Tournament Championship
Total at SAU (3 years)		37-62 (.378)	24-54 (.307)