The 2005 Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Women's Championship game is one that Creighton basketball fans will never forget.  Point guard Linda Sayavongchanh and the Drake Bulldogs stomped the Bluejays 61-44.  The Bluejays would get their revenge in 2015 when Drake’s former superstar joined their coaching staff.

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Linda’s parents, Amkha and Somchith Sayavongchanh, were resettled in Des Moines, Iowa, by their sponsor in 1979.   Her mother’s older brother was already living in the area. Linda was born in Des Moines and attended Lincoln High School where she was a standout on the girls’ basketball team.  She closed out her high school career with a staggering 1,630 points and was named Gatorade player of the year as a senior. She was inducted into both the Lincoln High Hall of Fame and Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union Hall of Fame.  Linda went on to play at Drake University, finishing her collegiate career with 1,129 points, 266 steals and three All Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) nominations.  During the 2005 MVC tournament championship game she scored fifteen points and led the Bulldogs to a 61-44 win over the Creighton University Bluejays, securing Drake an NCAA tournament bid. 

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Linda graduated from Drake with a Bachelors's in elementary education before pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.  She launched her coaching career at Duluth when she joined the women’s basketball staff as a graduate assistant.    After coaching at Drake, North Dakota and for the Saint Louis Billikens she landed at her old rival the Bluejays.  Linda joined Creighton as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator prior to the 2015/2016 season.  She helped to lead the Bluejays to NCAA tournament appearances in 2017 and 2018 and to a Big East Championship title in 2017.  During the 2018 NCAA tournament, the Bluejays defeated Iowa 76-70 before losing to UCLA in the second round 86-64.

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During the 2021/2022 season, Linda helped lead the Creighton Bluejays to the NCAA tournament where they lost to the tournament champion the University of South Carolina Gamecocks at the elite eight stage.  This was the best finish in program history.  In June of 2022 Linda announced that she would be joining the coaching staff at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, where she led her team to a Big 10 conference championship in her first season.