Tori Jankoska comes to EMU from the University of Virginia, where she was an assistant coach for the Cavaliers beginning in April, 2022.<\/p>\n
HARRISONBURG, VA (Eastern Mennonite University) \u2013\u00a0EMU Director of Athletics Carrie S. Bert \u201997 has announced the hiring of Tori Jankoska as the Royals Head Women\u2019s Basketball Coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout the search process, Tori separated herself with the combination of her high-level basketball experience, clear vision for our program, and genuine excitement for the opportunity to lead EMU Women\u2019s Basketball,\u201d Bert said. \u201cWhile this will be her first head coaching opportunity, her playing and coaching resume have prepared her well to lead our Royals. She articulated an appreciation for the Division III experience, and it was evident in her interview conversations that she is committed to transformational coaching, recruiting student-athletes for four years, but building relationships and impact that last for 40. Tori\u2019s energy, competitiveness, and passion for developing young women make her an outstanding fit for EMU.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jankoska comes to EMU from the University of Virginia, where she was an assistant coach for the Cavaliers beginning in April, 2022. During her four years in Charlottesville, she helped UVA to a 70-58 record, including a Sweet 16 run in this years NCAA Women\u2019s Basketball National Tournament. Guard Kymora Johnson was named an All-America Honorable Mention by the Women\u2019s Basketball Coaches Association and First Team All-ACC for the 25-26 season. In total, Jankoska coached three All-ACC selections and a pair of VaSID All-State honorees, including the 2025 VaSID State Player of the Year and the State Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n
Prior to her time at Virginia, she was an assistant coach at Missouri State from 2019-2022. In three seasons with the Lady Bears, Jankoska helped the Lady Bears to a 74-15 overall record and 46-6 mark in the Missouri Valley Conference with two regular season titles and an NCAA Sweet 16 appearance in 2021. She helped develop players that won multiple conference honors including player of the year, defensive player of the year (twice), all-newcomer team (twice), all-defensive team (three times) and the Lady Bears had five first-team all-MVC selections.<\/p>\n
Jankoska helped Missouri State to a No. 5 seed in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, tying the best seed in program history, and final ranking of 14th in the USA Today Coaches Poll, MSU\u2019s best since 2001. The Lady Bears ended each of Jankoska\u2019s seasons ranked in the top 25 of both major polls, posted an unbeaten home season in 2019-20, and followed that by going undefeated in conference play (16-0) and on the road (11-0) for the first time in school history in 2020-21.<\/p>\n
She started her coaching career as the Director of Recruiting Operations and Player Personnel at the University of Maryland, under the direction of head coach Brenda Frese. In 2018-19, the Terrapins finished 29-5 and won the Big Ten regular-season championship, before falling in the second round of the NCAA Women\u2019s Basketball Championship. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Before Jankoska started coaching, the Freeland, Michigan native was a standout guard at Michigan State. In her four years with the Spartans, she was a four-time All-Big Ten selection and finished her career as the Spartans\u2019 all-time leader in points (2,212), 3-pointers (320) and free throws (478), while ranking second with 489 assists and 707 field goals. She averaged 16.9 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists in her college career.<\/p>\n
Jankoska earned honorable mention All-America honors from the Associated Press and WBCA following a spectacular senior season in East Lansing, in which she set MSU season records with 746 points and 122 3-pointers in 2016-17, added the single-game scoring record with 42 points against Ohio State, and recorded a triple-double versus Minnesota, finishing the season with averages of 22.6 points, 8.0 rebounds and 4.8 assists.<\/p>\n
After college, she was the ninth overall pick by the Chicago Sky in the 2017 WNBA draft and represented the United States in the World University Games in August 2017 in Taiwan, before beginning her professional career with the Polish club Basket Gdynia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m incredibly honored and excited to join Eastern Mennonite University as the next head women\u2019s basketball coach,\u201d Jankoska said. \u201cWhat stood out to me most about EMU was its strong sense of community and the shared vision for the future of the athletic department and women\u2019s basketball program. I truly believe in Athletic Director\u00a0Carrie Bert<\/a>\u2018s leadership and vision, and I\u2019m deeply grateful for her confidence in me to lead this program. I\u2019m eager to get to work building a competitive, passionate culture and creating something special alongside our student-athletes and the entire campus community.\u201d<\/p>\n Jankoska will begin her duties as head coach on July 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tori Jankoska comes to EMU from the University of Virginia, where she was an assistant coach for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-745285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-basketball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116646445308750121","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}