McChester makes the move from Charlotte to follow Marquette’s new head women’s basketball coach.
Things are starting to shape on the southwest side of the Al McGuire Center, as new Marquette women’s basketball coach Cara Consuegra announced her first assistant coach hire on Friday. The coach in question is Deont’a McChester, who is following Consuegra up to Milwaukee from Charlotte.
Here’s Consuegra on McChester:
“I am thrilled to continue my coaching journey with Deont’a and welcome him to Marquette,” Consuegra said. “Deont’a is an elite recruiter and developer of people first. He takes great pride in mentoring student athletes and preparing them for life after basketball. His exceptional knowledge of the game and high energy will also have a positive impact on the program. I am confident in Deont’a’s abilities and believe he will help us win and move this program forward.”
And here’s McChester on his new job:
“I am really honored that Cara has trusted me to join her at Marquette,” McChester said. “I am a true believer in Cara and her vision she has for Marquette women’s basketball. This is a great opportunity for us to represent the Marquette brand and compete for championships in the BIG EAST Conference.”
This will be McChester’s first high major coaching job. After graduating from Keuka College in Central New York in 2007, he immediately got a job as a men’s basketball assistant at Guilford, which is a Division 3 school in North Carolina. He was a Director of Basketball Operations at Winston-Salem State in Division 2 for a year, and then moved on to SUNY-Cobleskill in Division 3 as an assistant. In 2013, McChester was hired as the head coach at Division 2 Clafin University in South Carolina, and then made the move to Division 1, this time as an assistant in 2017 with Tennessee State where he earned his master’s degree in 2020. A coaching change at TSU moved McChester along to Georgia Southern, and he was elevated to Associate Head Coach there in 2022. McChester was hired by Consuegra as an assistant at Charlotte this past season, the 49ers’ first year in the American Athletic Conference.
I think it’s worth noting right here that Marquette has turned the roster page for women’s basketball over to the 2024-25 edition. I mention this because 1) It’s still listing Justine Raterman as associate head coach and Khadijah Rushdan as assistant coach and 2) You will notice that not a single part of the MU press release on the hire of McChester mentions those two at all. I suspect that if Consuegra was even thinking about retaining those two on staff, the press release would be announcing the finalization of the staff, not just hiring McChester. This may just be a “well, officially, they’re still employed, so we’re going to keep listing them as long as that’s true” situation.
While we’re on the roster page, I want to point out that Noted Press Conference Attendee Lee Volker is not on the roster. She was, however, clearly participating in workouts that Consuegra was running the other day.
That’s her just over Skylar Forbes’ shoulder in the primary picture that loads up, and there’s a solo shot of Volker in the 9th picture. Does that mean Volker’s leaning towards staying at Marquette? Who can say?!
Also worth noting here: Sure looks like Charia Smith is a full participant in the workout, right? That’s good news after she sat out all of 2023-24 with a knee injury.
There’s going to be more news coming one way or another — I’m working on a recruiting piece given some new offers that Consuegra has made — so keep your eyes and ears open, y’all…..