Yolanda Cole is an assistant coach for the University of Massachusetts Amherst women's basketball program in Amherst, Massachusetts, and entered her fourth season on the staff in 2025-26 after joining the Minutewomen in the summer of 2023. She arrived at UMass with more than 16 years of Division I coaching experience and began her coaching career at Central Connecticut State and Kellogg Community College.
At Massachusetts, Cole has been part of back-to-back seasons of notable progress. In 2025-26, UMass posted a 23-6 regular-season record and went 15-3 in conference play, earning the No. 3 seed in the Mid-American Conference Tournament and surpassing 20 wins for the first time since 2022-23. That team finished among the national leaders in several categories, including assists, steals, turnovers forced, assist-to-steal ratio, and three-point percentage defense, while ranking near the top of the MAC in opponent three-point percentage, scoring defense, assists, assist-to-turnover ratio, scoring margin, opponent field goal percentage, steals, and blocked shots. In 2024-25, the Minutewomen improved to 17-15 overall and 11-7 in Atlantic 10 play, a 12-win overall jump and a nine-game increase in conference victories from the previous season. UMass earned a first-round bye in the 2025 A-10 Championship, received a WNIT bid, and finished the year with strong national rankings in rebound margin, scoring defense, offensive rebounding, opponent field goal percentage, and forced turnovers. In 2023-24, the program closed the regular season with a win over St. Bonaventure and then defeated La Salle in the Atlantic 10 Championship first round, while Lilly Taulelei was named to the A-10 All-Rookie Team and Stefanie Kulesza earned Cancun Challenge All-Tournament honors.
