One of the state’s Division I schools has its new head women’s basketball coach.

And as a result, another one now has an opening.

Kate Achter, who in three seasons at Detroit Mercy turned around a program that was in absolute disarray before she arrived, has been hired as the new head coach at Western Michigan, Broncos athletic director Dan Bartholomae first told The Detroit News. Achter informed her players at Detroit Mercy of the move Friday morning, and Western Michigan players gathered for a team meeting later Friday afternoon.

“It was a really hard conversation with the Detroit kids, you know,” Achter said over the phone Friday afternoon, tearing up. “All the kids came up to the office afterward and wanted to still have their player-evaluation meetings.

“I got to spend a little time with each kid. There were a lot of laughs, and a lot of tears, too.”

Western Michigan will be the third head-coaching stop for Achter, 38, who spent six seasons at Loyola-Chicago before taking the Detroit Mercy job before the 2022-23 season.

At Western Michigan, Achter has agreed to a five-year contract worth $275,000 annually, making her the best-paid mid-major women’s basketball coach in the state. At Detroit Mercy, she was about to be making about $245,000 per year. Achter had a $40,000 buyout at Detroit Mercy, which will be paid by Western Michigan.

She will be introduced at a press conference in Kalamazoo on Tuesday. It’ll be her first introductory press conference. Loyola and Detroit Mercy didn’t have a formal introduction after she was hired.

“I can’t begin to tell you how impressed I was with her when I got a chance to spend some time with her one-on-one,” Bartholomae told The News from Fargo, North Dakota, where the Western Michigan hockey’s team opened the NCAA Tournament with a 2-1 win over Minnesota State on Thursday night. “She articulated a clear vision for the program as well as a recruiting strategy tailored to Western Michigan.

“With the resources we have coming into this program, and the clear history she has for turning programs around under challenging circumstances, this was a tremendous fit for us.”

Achter took over at Detroit Mercy in 2022-23, following a five-run year in which the Titans won 11 games total during that span. In her first season on the job, the Titans finished 5-25, then they went 17-16 — the program’s first winning season since 2016-17, and the biggest single-season turnaround in program history — and 15-15 this past season, when she earned her 100th career win.

At Loyola-Chicago, also a program in shambles when she took over, Achter went 2-28 in his first season and 18-12 in her last season — and yet, surprisingly wasn’t retained there. For her career, she’s 104-166, which represents the vast challenges she had when taking over those previous two programs. The situation is rosier at Western Michigan.

In making the move down Interstate 94 to Kalamazoo, Achter joins an athletic department with growing resources and infrastructure, including a new $300 million hockey and basketball arena that is scheduled to open in 2027. The facilities and athletics budget are major upgrades over Detroit Mercy.

“It’s pretty freaking cool,” Achter told The News. “That was another selling point, because a lot of schools talk about, ‘Oh, we’ve got a new arena coming.’ They’re actually moving dirt. It’s not a concept. It’s happening.”

At Western Michigan, Achter also has been promised an NIL budget.

Achter replaces Shane Clipfell, who was Western Michigan’s head coach for 13 seasons, and the Broncos’ all-time wins leader. He retired after this past season, in which the Broncos went 12-18, falling to Ball State in the first round of the Mid-American Conference tournament.

It’s a return to the MAC for Achter, who was a star player at Bowling Green, and is in the school’s athletics Hall of Fame.

Two years ago, when Bowling Green went looking for a new head women’s basketball coach, Achter surprisingly wasn’t even considered. That’s now Western Michigan’s gain, Bartholomae said.

“More than anything, success at WMU usually starts with people who are willing to get their hands dirty and grind,” said Bartholomae, who is making his first women’s basketball hire during his tenure at WMU “And what better evidence do we have of that then what Kate has done at two of the most difficult jobs in the country.”

Before becoming a head coach, Achter was an assistant coach at Xavier and, before that, at St. Bonaventure, which she helped lead to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament in 2012.

At Western Michigan, she takes over a program that has made the NCAA Tournament just twice, last in 2003.

Achter, who is married to wife Tina and has two young kids, emerged from a finalist pool that included multiple head-coaching candidates, including Grand Valley State head coach Mike Williams, who has the Lakers playing for a Division II national championship on Friday night. Western Michigan legend Carrie Moore was a high-hopes candidate, but she’s in a very good situation at Harvard, having led the program to the NCAA Tournament this season.

“That’s a home run if you ask me,” Moore said of Achter of Friday. “One of the toughest competitors that I’ve ever known, as a player and a coach. No doubt she will work tirelessly to get this program back to where it belongs.”

With Achter’s move from Detroit Mercy to Western Michigan, three of the state’s Division I women’s basketball programs will have new coaches, including Oakland, who was introducing Keisha Newell on Friday morning. The state’s other two programs have relatively new coaches, with Central Michigan’s Kristin Haynie just finishing her second season, and Eastern Michigan’s Sahar Nusseibeh just finishing her first.

Detroit Mercy will go searching for its fifth women’s basketball head coach in the last seven years. The school hired a search firm Friday. One internal candidate is believed to be Achter assistant Kiefer Haffey, a Wayne State alum who was head coach at Concordia University in Ann Arbor for four years before joining Achter’s staff three years ago.

“We would like to thank Coach Achter for her efforts in rebuilding the Titan program and putting us in a position to contend for a Horizon League championship,” Detroit Mercy athletics director Robert Vowels said in a statement.

Said Achter, reflecting on her three-year run at Detroit Mercy: “I loved working for Robert. I don’t get this job without Robert giving me a chance when I was at a really low point.”