Villanova University head women's basketball coach Denise Dillon announced that assistant coach Michelle Sword has been elevated to Associate Coach.

Sword enters her seventh season as a member of the Wildcat coaching staff in 2026-27. She arrived at Villanova in 2020-21 after spending the previous eight seasons on Denise Dillon's Drexel University staff.
 
In her role, Sword assists with on-court coaching duties, handles film breakdown of Wildcat players and Villanova opponents and serves as one of the program's on road recruiters.
 
Sword began her Drexel career as the team's Graduate Assistant from 2012-2014. In this position, she was responsible for the day-to-day operations within the basketball team, including travel and meal plan coordination, practice organization and office management. For the past six seasons, Sword was a full-time assistant on the Drexel coaching staff where she helped the Dragons to five 20-win seasons, five WNIT berths, three CAA tournament championship games and CAA regular season championships in 2017-18 and 2019-20.
 
She spent her collegiate career at Saint Joseph's University where she was four-year standout finishing as the program's all-time leader for games played with 127. Sword, who ranks 14^th on the Hawks all-time scoring list with 1,184 points, earned second team All-Atlantic 10 honors as a senior in 2012 when she averaged a team-high 13.0 points per game. She also garnered a spot on the 2012 Atlantic 10 All-Defensive Team and the 2012 All-Philadelphia Big 5 First Team.