When Colsten Thompson played basketball at Hartselle High in Alabama, he found the girl’s games hard to watch.
The Hartselle girl’s team almost always played right before the boy’s team, and Thompson just wasn’t into those contests. The slower-paced girl’s games didn’t capture his attention.
“I couldn’t sit out there and watch the game before us. I couldn’t. It would slow my focus down. I just couldn’t,” Thompson told The Daily Hoosier in a phone interview. “That’s bad to say, but that was me in high school.”
Many years later, in mid-April 2025, Thompson joined Indiana women’s basketball’s coaching staff as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator.
He warmed up to the women’s game when he started a training business, while still in his short-lived playing career. More of his clientele was girls than boys, and working closely with those girls opened his eyes to the women’s game. He saw athletes who were more receptive, carried smaller egos, and understood the work it takes to achieve success.
Thompson, while taking classes at Division II Alabama-Huntsville, started working with both the men’s and women’s basketball teams. He wasn’t an official staff member, but both programs allowed him to get on the court before games and help with warmups. Thompson was essentially serving as a student manager, without the title, and working for free, just because he loved it.
After around three months of that setup, he got an email from the UAH women’s basketball coach asking to meet with him. That conversation marked the beginning of his coaching journey on the women’s side.
“I met with her; she literally just laid it out. She was like, ‘Hey, I’m going to give you a scholarship, pay for your schooling, if you’ll come and be a part of us full-time. You don’t have to travel to games. I just want you at practice. I want you to be development guy, work with all of our players — posts, guards, everyone,'” Thompson said. “I was like, ‘You’re paying for my school?!’ And she was like, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘Great! You can count me in.'”
Thompson quickly came to love the work, and got more involved. Things like compiling scouting reports, traveling on road trips, and scheming defenses helped him decide he wanted to go into coaching professionally. He had a year and a half left to complete a civil engineering major at the time, but he decided to switch his major and pursue coaching.
He wound up on a fast-track that helped him earn his bachelor’s degree in sports fitness and management on time, but it took some convincing for his parents to let him switch away from engineering. He knew he could make great money in engineering, but he didn’t want to work a standard desk job and live with hardwood regrets.
“Once I did make that decision, I had a ‘come-to-Jesus’ meeting with them. And I broke down … I was like, ‘I can’t. I don’t love this (engineering). I love basketball. I have to be around it,'” Thompson said. “Ever since then, my parents are so supportive. They love it. They’re waiting for their Hoosier gear right now.”
The journey
Thompson spent two years as a student assistant at UAH, while running his training business. He then took a chance and accepted a graduate assistant job at Louisiana Tech, which meant moving away from his family. Thompson followed some advice he received after joining the Bulldogs to develop a trait that stands out from peers, and he learned Photoshop.
That became a key tool for recruiting, and opened the door for him to advance in the field rather quickly. He landed an assistant coach position at Lipscomb after just one year at Louisiana Tech, and a year later, he got a job at Alabama.
“I was player development, recruiting, all this, but Photoshop was a unique skill set, and that allowed me to take a position at Lipscomb I wasn’t even qualified for after just nine months as a grad assistant,” Thompson said. “I was not qualified for that. It allowed me to go to Bama; I was not qualified for that. It worked out.”
The Crimson Tide created an off-court position for Thompson in 2022, director of recruiting operations and creative content. He wasn’t allowed to work with players on or off the court; he was limited to solely recruiting. He called that the hardest year of his life. But it paid dividends, as he was elevated to an assistant coach role for the next two seasons.
Coming to Indiana
Thompson spent his entire basketball career in the south before Indiana called.
Neither he nor his wife have ever lived in the north, so they’re anticipating new experiences off the court when winter rolls around. But Thompson did have a few connections to the Hoosiers on the court that made him feel good.
At Alabama, he overlapped with former IU assistant Janese Constantine for one year, and he coached former IU graduate manager Hannah Barber. He also got to know current Indiana assistant Keyanna Warthen on the recruiting trail. He heard positive things about the program from all three.
But Thompson had never spoken to Indiana head coach Teri Moren before taking the job. The opportunity was unexpected, but he was excited to join a strong program.
“I’ve been really just impressed with the tradition. It’s a big women’s basketball program here, and they support women’s basketball,” Thompson said. “And that’s a huge reason why I wanted to be at a place like Indiana, where they bring support for women’s basketball, and people love it, want to be here, and be around it.”
Thompson joined the Hoosiers at a critical juncture for the program. They’ve seen six players transfer out this offseason, and six new players have filled those spots from the portal. Three of those new players — guard Jerni Kiaku, and forwards Edessa Noyan and Jade Ondineme — committed after Thompson’s hire.
He had no qualms about walking into a situation like that; it’s just part of the modern game in college athletics. Indiana’s roster was already mostly rebuilt by the time he arrived. He admired the way Moren and her staff worked to fill all those holes after the season ended.
One of those new Hoosiers gives Thompson an additional familiar face as he goes through his first year in Bloomington. Bedford, Ind. native Chloe Spreen spent her freshman year with Thompson with the Crimson Tide, but entered the transfer portal after the season.
Thompson was Spreen’s position coach at Alabama, and he recruited her to Tuscaloosa. He’s excited to continue coaching her after seeing her work hard last season, despite her playing time being lesser than hoped. He said she can take confidence from experiencing some of the high-level games she played in last year, and from learning from recent WNBA first-round draft pick Sarah Ashlee Barker.
“Sarah Ashlee took her (Spreen) under her wing there, and really helped build her and mold her, even though she wasn’t getting the playing time she’s always gotten,” Thompson said. “Confidence is something that we’re getting (in Spreen), but we’re also getting a high-IQ basketball player. She knows the game, and she works.”
Dollars and cents
The Daily Hoosier obtained a copy of Thompson’s memorandum of understanding with IU.
Thompson will make $165,000 for 2025-26, per his memoradum of understanding with IU, which The Daily Hoosier obtained through a public records request. He’d receive $13,750 bonuses for an NCAA Tournament appearance, a Sweet 16 appearance, a Final Four appearance, and a national championship.
That salary is less than associate head coach Rhet Wierzba’s from 2024-25 ($221,450). But he’ll make slightly more than his predecessor, Linda Sayavongchanh, did in 2023-24 ($160,000). The bonus structures are all similar.
There’s no buyout listed in the MOU, but it does include a clause stating Thompson agrees “not to seek or apply for other employment while employed by the University without prior written notice to the University.” Recent men’s assistant basketball coach hire Drew Adams had the same clause included in his MOU.
Coaching and recruiting mindsets
While some coaches might specialize primarily in offense, defense, or a specific position, Thompson’s highest priority as a coach lies elsewhere.
That’s not to say he doesn’t focus on any of those facets of the job. But his biggest coaching emphasis is building confidence. He knows his players so well from all the time spent together in practices, weight room sessions, meetings, watching film, and everything else the team does together. So before games, he’ll pay very close attention to warm-ups. If someone is showing nervous body language or their shots look off, he gives them the mental boost they need. And that doesn’t mean screaming encouragement in front of everyone — it means pulling players aside for short individual chats, so he can help them be their best selves.
“All of these players are here for a reason. They can play at this level. They’re all going to be good players. They all can do it. Sometimes what they need is a little bit of something outside of just a basketball circle,” Thompson said. “Let me hear from a human perspective of, ‘You’re a person right now. Let me feed you confidence as a person. That’s going to allow you to be the best basketball player you can be tonight.'”
Thompson’s approach to recruiting aligns with the way Moren’s program has operated through the years. He’s aware of recruiting rankings and understands the importance of compiling strong classes, but he’s selective about which players he offers. The recruits he does offer are the ones he’s particularly interested in and wants to build relationships with.
He’s also mindful of the future — he doesn’t focus solely on the one or two classes closest to entering college. While at Alabama, Thompson made real efforts with recruits in the class of 2030 and 2031, and he said he’s carried those relationships over to IU.
“I get, everyone’s always talking about, ‘It’s year to year. You have to make sure you get really good recruits every year.’ Yeah, you do. But you also got to build for the future. And so that’s what I really value a lot of time in, is to young recruiting. I’m talking to tons of 10th graders, tons of ninth graders; eighth graders are on our list,” Thompson said. “We’re trying to build for the future here because we plan on being here for a long time. I plan on being here for a long time. It’s easy to recruit for a place when you know you’re going to be there for a while.”
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