PROVO, Utah — Head coach Amber Whiting announced the hiring of Keilani Unga as the BYU women’s basketball director of operations on Monday morning.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled for Keilani to join our BYU women’s basketball family,” said Whiting. “Keilani was a great player at BYU and has a great basketball mind. Having her on staff will help elevate our ability to get the most out of our players and put them in positions to succeed. We are excited for her to get to work with our players and make her mark on BYU, this time as a coach.”
The newly named director of operations spent four seasons as an assistant coach to Dan Nielson at Utah Valley University. Unga was the recruiting coordinator, post-players coach, camp coordinator and served as the director of operations in addition to her role as an assistant coach during her first two seasons in Orem.
At UVU, Unga helped the Wolverines to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 2020-21 where they faced the No. 1 overall seed and eventual national champion Stanford in the opening round. That season, Unga helped UVU to a program record 10-4 WAC record, the best mark since joining the WAC in 2013-14.
During her tenure with the Wolverines, Unga coached eight all-conference players including two All-WAC first-team selections, two that were named to the All-WAC second team, two All-WAC honorable mentions and two that received All-WAC defensive team nods. She also helped 19 players receive Academic All-WAC honors.
Prior to her time at UVU, Unga served as an assistant coach for the Mountain View High School girls' team in Orem, Utah from 2016-18.
Unga suited up for the Cougars from 2007-10 before a two-year hiatus during which she gave birth to her first two children. She then returned for her final season in 2012-13 in which she was named to an All-West Coast Conference honorable mention as well as the 2013 Cougar Club Comeback Player of the Year. Unga played in the 13th-most games in BYU history (125) and recorded the 14th-most starts as a Cougar (101).
Unga is from Warrenville, Illinois where she prepped at Wheaton High School. Her brother Tony Moeaki who played collegiately at Iowa before playing eight seasons in the NFL. During her time at BYU, Unga met and married her husband Harvey who played football for the Cougars from 2006-09 and now serves as the running backs coach for BYU. She and Harvey have five children: Jackson, Leila, Makai “Kai”, Naomi and Harvey “Duece”.