DePaul introduced Friday morning that longtime head ladies’s basketball coach Doug Bruno is stepping down after 39 years main the Blue Demons. He leaves his publish with 786 wins, which is Eleventh-most all-time amongst all Division I ladies’s basketball coaches.
Bruno, 74, coached DePaul briefly within the mid-Seventies earlier than leaving to teach the Chicago Hustle within the short-lived Girls’s Skilled Basketball League. After the league dissolved, Bruno was an assistant for the Loyola Chicago males for a number of seasons earlier than returning to DePaul in 1988 the place he remained in that publish by means of this season.
Throughout his practically four-decade tenure main the Blue Demons, DePaul turned a mid-major powerhouse and an everyday within the NCAA Match, after which stored profitable when it joined the Massive East in 2005. They made 25 NCAA Tournaments and 4 Candy 16s below Bruno’s watch and gained the Massive East Match 5 occasions.
The Blue Demons have been ranked within the AP Prime 25 Ballot for 221 weeks whereas Bruno was coach, rating as excessive as seventh within the 2010-11 season. Bruno additionally had 15 gamers drafted by WNBA groups, together with All-Star Allie Quigley.
Bruno additionally gained two gold medals as an assistant coach for Workforce USA in 2012 and 2016, and was inducted into the Girls’s Basketball Corridor of Fame in 2022.
He missed nearly all of this previous season whereas on medical depart. He’ll stay at DePaul because the particular assistant to the vp/director of athletics for girls’s basketball.
DePaul now has a training emptiness late within the carousel cycle, however many within the sport view it as a fantastic job.
“DeWayne Peevy is a star as an athletic director,” one agent informed SB Nation. “He’ll get a fantastic coach and help them. DePaul is one of the best job remaining and I may argue it’s one of the best job that has opened this cycle — it might not even be shut.”
One longtime assistant coach added: “The services are good and the pay is predicted to be strong.”
A number of sources informed SB Nation that DePaul can also be dedicated to placing revenue-sharing funds in the direction of ladies’s basketball as soon as the Home settlement goes by means of. By not having FBS soccer, DePaul — and different Massive East faculties — could have a bonus within the Home period. The settlement will pave the best way for Division I applications to share income instantly with athletes for the primary time. Whereas faculties with FBS soccer groups will probably push most of these sources in the direction of that sport, establishments with out it usually tend to give males’s and girls’s basketball the largest items of the income sharing pie.
“I feel that may be, and possibly can be, a bonus for us,” Massive East commissioner Val Ackerman not too long ago informed Entrance Workplace Sports activities. “We don’t have soccer income, however we don’t have soccer bills, both.”
Duke athletic director Nina King informed Yahoo Sports activities: “Within the Massive East, their basketball revenue-share portion can be much more than what these of us can do who’ve Division I energy soccer applications.”
The revenue-sharing period may make Massive East jobs extra enticing than they have been, say, 5 years in the past. The Massive East solely received two bids into the NCAA Match this season — and, let’s be trustworthy, everybody else within the league is enjoying for second to UConn — however its picture may change as groups make investments extra into the game, which in flip may result in touchdown extra gifted gamers and profitable extra video games. Bruno knew find out how to get gifted gamers, like Aneesah Morrow, however he couldn’t compete with what SEC applications like LSU have been providing in NIL packages for her companies. Income-sharing may degree the enjoying discipline a bit.
“It’s a fantastic opening,” one other agent informed SB Nation.
One supply mentioned they anticipate DePaul to rent a sitting head coach.
Right here’s who may be within the combine to succeed Bruno.
Bart Brooks
Brooks was an assistant below Bruno for 11 seasons earlier than taking the pinnacle job at Belmont, the place he has amassed a training file of 197-67 in eight seasons — a profitable proportion of 74.6. He’s taken Belmont to 4 NCAA Tournaments and has gained 21 or extra video games in each season on the job. His success at Belmont coupled along with his familiarity with DePaul and relationship with Bruno makes Brooks a powerful match.
Carly Thibault-DuDonis
Thibault-DuDonis is glad at Fairfield the place she’s gone 74-22 in three seasons and brought the Stags to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments, however sooner or later it’s probably that she is going to transfer up a degree and check herself in a more durable league. A number of Energy 4 athletic administrators have referred to as her over the previous two years about openings and he or she has politely declined them. However due to the best way DePaul is supporting and investing in ladies’s basketball, this job may be enticing to her.
Carrie Moore
Moore, who simply led Harvard to its first NCAA Match look since 2007, is aware of the midwest nicely, having performed at Western Michigan — the place she led the NCAA in scoring as a senior in 2007 — after which labored as an assistant coach at Creighton and Michigan. Moore additionally labored for a number of years below Courtney Banghart at Princeton after which at North Carolina. She’s been touted as a gifted recruiter, and on the age of 39, probably the greatest younger head coaches within the sport. Underneath her watch this 12 months, Harvard had its finest season in additional than a decade.
Erin Dickerson-Davis
Dickerson-Davis is from Chicago, performed at Northwestern and is a former Massive East assistant coach, so she’s accustomed to the panorama that DePaul is working in. As a Georgetown assistant, she signed 4 gamers who would develop into All-Massive East alternatives. However Dickerson-Davis is a gorgeous teaching candidate proper now due to the success she had at William & Mary this season, the place she led the Tribe to their first NCAA Match berth and first March Insanity victory, topping Excessive Level within the First 4. Merely put, Dickerson-Davis simply gained — in simply her third season — in a spot the place no coach had earlier than.
Kristen Gillespie
About three hours south of DePaul, Gillespie has piled up quite a lot of wins whereas main the Redbirds. Gillespie — who performed for Kay Yow at N.C. State — has gone 155-94 in eight seasons at Illinois State. In 2022, she led them to their first NCAA Match look in 14 years, and in 2023 gained the common season convention title and the Missouri Valley Coach of the 12 months award. Gillespie was linked to openings at Wisconsin and Missouri, however this might be one of the best match for her. Additionally, her father Mike performed at DePaul alongside Bruno within the early Seventies.
