Phoenix — Mercury have appointed former Las Vegas ace assistant Vanessa Nygaard as their new head coach, a league source confirmed to ESPN.
An official announcement is expected on Monday.
Nygaard replaces Sandy Brundillo, whose contract expired after the 2021 season and who was appointed as the new coach for the New York Liberty in early January.
Nygaard has training experience at the professional, collegiate, secondary and international levels.
Nygaard, 46, spent the 2021 season as assistant Bill Laimbere for Las Vegas, who lost in the WNBA semi-finals to Phoenix. She is also a high school coach at Windward School in Los Angeles, where she won three state titles in California. Among his top players was the current Seattle shooting guard Storm Jordan Canada, who started college at the University of California.
A native of Scottsdale, Arizona, Nygaard played college basketball at Stanford and went to the Final Four three times with the Cardinal from 1995 to 1997. He played five seasons in the WNBA before leaving to train as an assistant at Long Beach State and then with Pepperdine.
Nygaard then transferred to the WNBA and was an assistant for San Antonio in 2008, when the stars went to the WNBA Finals. She spent the following season as an assistant for the Washington Mystics before moving up to the high school level as a coach.
News of Nygaard’s signing was first reported by The Athletic.
ESPN’s Michael Voebel contributed to this report.