Denise Rosario was tabbed an assistant coach with the UTEP women’s basketball team in June of 2026.
She spent the past two seasons at the University of Idaho (2024-26), helping the program forge a combined record of 47-18. The Vandals went 18-12 in 2024-25, her first year with the school, before a historic season in 2025-26. Idaho set a school record for wins (29-6), claimed both the Big Sky regular season and tournament championship and competed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade. Four different players garnered postseason accolades.
Prior to making the leap to DI, Rosario achieved plenty at the junior-college and NAIA level. She recruited a pair of NJCAA All-Americans (Okaro Adika ’20 and Celia Sumbane ’23), one NAIA Second-Team All-American (Priscila Santos ’13), and one WNBA draftee (Adika ’23). Her teams advanced to the NJCAAA Sweet 16 in consecutive campaigns (2017-19) while later marching into the Elite Eight in back-to-years (2020-22). Rosario’s squads claimed the NJCAA Region V title four times combined in her previous two stops.
She spent three years as an assistant coach at South Plains College (Levelland, Texas), recruiting and developing top domestic and international student-athletes who ventured there from the likes of Angola, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Mozambique, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, South Sudan, Sweden and Türkiye. Rosario also helped on the administrative side of things for the international students, walking them through their visa application and college admissions processes.
South Plains registered a combined mark of 62-23 during her three seasons, including a stellar mark of 20-4 in 2020-21. It claimed the WJCAC Conference Championship and was a WJCAC Region V Finalist in 2023. The team also went to the Elite Eight at the national tournament in 2022.
Rosario was an assistant coach at Odessa College from 2017-20. The squad went 70-28 in that timeframe. She recruited Adika, who eventually competed at USC before being drafted by the New York Liberty in 2023. Among her daily duties was creating skill-specific training and developmental drills for both post players and guards.
Her coaching career began in earnest as a graduate assistant from 2012-14 at William Woods University (Fulton, Mo). She helped in all facets of the program while also earning her master’s degree in athletics and activities administration
Rosario played in college at both the NJCAA (Northeastern Oklahoma Junior College) and NAIA (Columbia College) level. She was a two-year standout at Columbia College, helping it qualify for a pair of NAIA national tournaments. That included advancing to the Elite Eight in 2008-09. While with Northeast Oklahoma Junior College, she was an Honorable-Mention All-American and All-Region first-team recipient in both years.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in human services with a minor in psychology from Columbia College before going on to secure her master’s degree at Williams Woods.
Rosario was born and raised in Ipatinga, Minas Gerais, Brazil. She is the second-youngest of 11 children and was the first person in her family to play sports, graduate college, and graduate grad school.
