Ariel Caraway finishes her third season as the director of operations for UNCG women’s basketball in 2020-21. Caraway comes to UNCG after being an administrative associate at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Spartans clinched their first regular season conference title since 2002 during the 2019-20 campaign, going as far as the SoCon tournament finals during their postseason run. UNCG went 21-8 on the year with a 10-4 conference record, the most overall wins the team has had since that title run in 2002. UNCG's 13 home wins were just a single victory shy of tying a program record, as the Spartans led the conference in field goal percentage (42.9), field goal percentage defense (36.8), free throw percentage (77.1), scoring defense (55.3), scoring margin (+8.7) and three-point field goal percentage defense (28.3). Nadine Soliman and Te'ja Twitty both earned SoCon All-Conference honors under Patterson in 2020, with the former receiving First Team honors and the team's first-ever Player of the Year recognition. The Spartans' scoring defense ranked 16th in all of Division I women's basketball during that campaign.
Caraway led all operations of the team’s trip to Italy in August of 2019. The team spent nine days in the country, playing a game in three different cities: Rome, Florence and Venice.
As the administrative associate from 2015-18 at Texas, Caraway handled office-related logistics and operations, including scheduled meetings, arranging travel, processed expense reports, managed the operating budget, planned and executed department-wide events and oversaw records retention for the entire department.
Caraway worked as an event operations assistant for the 2018 WBCA Convention in Columbus, Ohio and was the spirit group coordinator for the NCAA women’s basketball tournament first and second rounds in Austin, Texas.
The Lake Charles, La., native was the zone manager of the 2017 NFL Draft Experience in Philadelphia, Pa., where she oversaw the operations of the NFL’s “Play Football” zone.
She also served as a game operations assistant for the Big 12 Women’s Basketball Championship in Oklahoma City, Okla., in 2017.
From 2006-13 in Lake Charles, La., Caraway the freshman high school girls basketball at St. Louis Catholic High School from 2006-10 and as a middle school girls basketball coach at St. Margret Catholic School from 2010-13.
Caraway earned her bachelor of science degree from McNeese State University in Business Management in May of 2010 and her master’s degree of sports management from Texas in December of 2017.
