Alabama Women's Basketball finds Kristy Curry's replacement in top SEC assistant

A familiar face will be taking over for Alabama women's basketball.

According to On3's Talia Goodman, Greg Byrne has hired Oklahoma associate head coach Pauline Love to take over for Kristy Curry, who left the Crimson Tide to take the head coaching job at USF shortly after Alabama was knocked out of the second round of the NCAA Tournament by Louisville.

Alabama hires Pauline Love as next Women's Basketball Coach

Love spent the past season on Jennie Baranczyk's staff at Oklahoma as the associate head coach. Prior to that, she spent one season on Kristy Curry's staff as an assistant and recruiting coordinator, where she was instrumental in helping the Crimson Tide sign an elite 2025 recruiting class, one that included star freshman Ace Austin, whose future is of the utmost importance this offseason amid the coaching change.

Love has extensive SEC experience, spending seven seasons at Arkansas as an assistant and recruiting coordinator.

It's as a recruiter that Love has always shone, which is undoubtedly what made her so appealing for Byrne to target. It's obvious, based on Curry's decision to move on, that Alabama is not going to commit a ton of resources to the women's basketball program

So they need a coach who is going to go out there and acquire talent anyway, and one who can help develop that talent once it arrives in Tuscaloosa.

Love will be tasked with replacing a coach in Curry who had a tremendous amount of success, resurrecting a dormant Crimson Tide program, and leading them to the NCAA Tournament for four seasons in a row.

The next step will be getting Alabama out of the first weekend of the tournament, which is what Love will aim to do. Alabama has not made it to the Sweet 16 in women's basketball since 1998.

Along with her extensive assistant coaching experience, Love played college basketball at Southern Miss before playing one season in the WNBA with the Connecticut Sun.