Women's Basketball

Ali Jaques  
Ali  Jaques

Head Coach

Career Record:
44-53 (22-36 MAAC)

In just three short seasons Ali Jaques has put Siena Women's Basketball back on the map. Under her leadership the Saints enter the 2015-16 season as a program on the rise following a 22-win campaign in 2014-15 which marked the program's first winning season in 11 years and most victories in a dozen seasons and culminated in an appearance in the championship game of the Women's Basketball Invitational.

Now entering her fourth season, Jaques has compiled a 44-53 (.454) overall record including a 22-36 (.379) mark in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. On August 20, 2015, Siena announced that it had extended Jaques' contract through 2020.

Jaques was introduced as the eighth head coach in program history at a press conference on April 12, 2012. Upon her hiring, Siena College President Fr. Kevin Mullen, O.F.M. commented, "I am very pleased to welcome Ali as our new head women's basketball coach. She has a great track record as a recruiter and her teams have had consistent postseason success. I'm confident that she'll do very well at Siena."

Jaques guided the Saints to a 22-13 overall record during the 2014-15 season which marked the program's first winning season in 11 years and most victories in a dozen seasons. Siena's 13-win improvement from the previous season was tied for the second best turnaround in all of Division I and the Saints' 12 true road wins were tied for the fourth most nationally.

Despite being projected to finish 10th of 11 teams in the MAAC Preseason Coaches' Poll and forced to play with an active roster of just seven players for the final 30 games of the season, the Saints persevered to finish fifth in the conference standings with a 11-9 mark in posting an eight-win league improvement from the previous season. Additionally, for the third time in Jaques' first three seasons, the Saints won their MAAC Tournament opener as the lower seeded team.

Siena was rewarded for its success with a trip to the Women's Basketball Invitational and became the first school in MAAC history to win three games in a national postseason tournament and advance to the championship game. The Saints defeated Big East foe Xavier in the quarterfinals in Cincinnati by 20 points, marking the program's largest margin of victory ever over a current member of one of the six major conferences (ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC).

Recruiting is the lifeblood of any program and each of Jaques' recruiting classes has made immediate major impacts. Over the past two seasons, Siena has boasted the MAAC's Rookie of the Week 14 times and had four different awardees. Conversely, no other MAAC school has won the award more than six times and/or had more than two different awardees over that time. Last season Jaques mentored Margot Hetzke who was the unanimous choice for MAAC Rookie of the Year after being named the conference's Rookie of the Week a program record nine times and scoring 446 points -- the third highest total by a freshman in the program's four-plus decade history.

One of Jaques' staples that she has brought with her to Loudonville has been her pressure "Blizzard" defense. The Saints have thrived in the system, ranking either first or second in the MAAC in both steals and turnovers forced in each of Jaques' first three seasons. Jaques developed Tehresa Coles into the MAAC's premier defender as the Loudonville product led the conference in each of her three seasons playing in the system. Coles recently graduated as the program's all-time career (308) and single-season (98) leader in steals and was named the 2014-15 MAAC Defensive Player of the Year.

Jaques brought 14 years of Division I coaching experience to Loudonville, having served as an assistant coach at six different institutions. Her teams posted four NCAA Tournament wins and three WNIT victories.


Jaques came to Loudonville following a four-year stint at Northwestern in which she was the associate head coach the previous two seasons under Joe McKeown. During her time in Evanston, Jaques served as the recruiting coordinator for a program which boasted the 14th ranked recruiting class in the nation in 2011 and the No. 20 ranked recruiting class in 2009 according to ESPN Hoopgurlz.





Jaques is a 1998 graduate of New York University where she played both basketball and soccer and made the Dean's List all four years. Jaques led the Violets to the 1997 Division III National Championship, a 1996 Final Four appearance and two Sweet 16's. In her four years NYU posted a 101-15 (.871) record. A two-time Coach's Award recipient, she was named a UAA Honorable Mention All-Association selection during her senior season.

A native of Rosemont, N.J., Jaques comes from a very athletic family. Her brother, Curtis, is the head men's lacrosse coach at Division III Wilkes University (Pa.) and played collegiatelly at Virginia Military Institute. Her brother, Parker, played football at the University of Rochester. Her sister, Sidney, played collegiatelly on the University of Scranton women's basketball team.

Year-by-Year With Coach Jaques

2012-13 13-18 .419 8-10 .444 T-6th Advanced to MAAC Semifinals as No. 6 seed
2013-14 9-22 .290 3-17 .150 10th Advanced to MAAC Quarterfinals as No. 10 seed
2014-15 22-13 .629 11-9 .550 5th Advanced to Women's Basketball Invitational Championship; Program's first winning season in 11 years and most wins in a dozen seasons; 13-win improvement was tied for second best turnaround in all of Division I; Tied for fourth nationally in road wins (12)
TOTALS 44-53 .454 22-36 .379
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