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 put up 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-Nineteen Seventies earlier than leaving to educate 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 put up via this season.
Throughout his practically four-decade tenure main the Blue Demons, DePaul grew to become a mid-major powerhouse and a daily within the NCAA Event, after which stored profitable when it joined the Large East in 2005. They made 25 NCAA Tournaments and 4 Candy 16s beneath Bruno’s watch and gained the Large East Event 5 occasions.
The Blue Demons had 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 Staff USA in 2012 and 2016, and was inducted into the Girls’s Basketball Corridor of Fame in 2022.
He missed the vast majority of this previous season whereas on medical go away. He’ll stay at DePaul because the particular assistant to the vp/director of athletics for ladies’s basketball.
DePaul now has a training emptiness late within the carousel cycle, however many within the sport view it as an incredible job.
“DeWayne Peevy is a star as an athletic director,” one agent instructed SB Nation. “He’ll get an incredible coach and help them. DePaul is the most effective job remaining and I might argue it’s the most effective 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 stable.”
A number of sources instructed SB Nation that DePaul can be dedicated to placing revenue-sharing funds in direction of ladies’s basketball as soon as the Home settlement goes via. By not having FBS soccer, DePaul — and different Large East colleges — might have a bonus within the Home period. The settlement will pave the best way for Division I packages to share income immediately with athletes for the primary time. Whereas colleges with FBS soccer groups will seemingly push most of these sources in direction of that sport, establishments with out it usually tend to give males’s and ladies’s basketball the most important items of the income sharing pie.
“I believe that may be, and possibly will likely be, a bonus for us,” Large East commissioner Val Ackerman just lately instructed Entrance Workplace Sports activities. “We don’t have soccer income, however we don’t have soccer bills, both.”
Duke athletic director Nina King instructed Yahoo Sports activities: “Within the Large East, their basketball revenue-share portion will likely be much more than what these of us can do who’ve Division I energy soccer packages.”
The revenue-sharing period might make Large East jobs extra engaging than they had been, say, 5 years in the past. The Large East solely acquired two bids into the NCAA Event this season — and, let’s be sincere, everybody else within the league is enjoying for second to UConn — however its picture might change as groups make investments extra into the game, which in flip might result in touchdown extra proficient gamers and profitable extra video games. Bruno knew the right way to get proficient gamers, like Aneesah Morrow, however he couldn’t compete with what SEC packages like LSU had been providing in NIL packages for her providers. Income-sharing might stage the enjoying discipline a bit.
“It’s an incredible opening,” one other agent instructed SB Nation.
One supply mentioned they count on DePaul to rent a sitting head coach.
Right here’s who is likely to be within the combine to succeed Bruno.
Bart Brooks
Brooks was an assistant beneath Bruno for 11 seasons earlier than taking the top job at Belmont, the place he has amassed a training document 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 robust match.
Carly Thibault-DuDonis
Thibault-DuDonis is blissful at Fairfield the place she’s gone 74-22 in three seasons and brought the Stags to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments, however in some unspecified time in the future it’s seemingly that she’s going to transfer up a stage and check herself in a harder league. A number of Energy 4 athletic administrators have known 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 is likely to be engaging to her.
Carrie Moore
Moore, who simply led Harvard to its first NCAA Event look since 2007, is aware of the midwest effectively, 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 beneath Courtney Banghart at Princeton after which at North Carolina. She’s been touted as a proficient recruiter, and on the age of 39, the most effective younger head coaches within the sport. Below her watch this yr, 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 Large 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 turn into All-Large East picks. However Dickerson-Davis is a sexy 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 Event 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 a whole 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 Event 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 may very well be the most effective match for her. Additionally, her father Mike performed at DePaul alongside Bruno within the early Nineteen Seventies.
