PHOENIX — The Mercury have hired former Las Vegas Aces assistant Vanessa Nygaard as their new coach, a league source confirmed to ESPN.
A formal announcement is anticipated to be made on Monday.
Nygaard replaces Sandy Brondello, whose contract expired after the 2021 season and who was hired as the New York Liberty’s new head coach in early January.
Nygaard has experience coaching at the professional, collegiate, high school and international levels.
Nygaard, 46, spent the 2021 season as Bill Laimbeer’s assistant on the Las Vegas team, which lost in the WNBA semifinals to Phoenix. She is also a high school coach at Windward School in Los Angeles, where she has won three California state titles. Among his best players there was current Seattle Storm shooting guard Jordin Canada, who started college at UCLA.
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 moved 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 proceeding to the high school level as a coach.
News of Nygaard’s signing was first reported by The Athletic.
ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel contributed to this report.