HOPEWELL, N.J.  — HerHoopStats.com announced the 20 members of the preseason watch list for the 2024 Kathy Delaney-Smith Mid-Major Coach of the Year Award presented by Her Hoop Stats.  (FULL LIST)

The Missouri Valley Conference has three coaches making the list. Belmont's Bart Brooks, Illinois State's Kristen Gillespie and UNI's Tanya Warren each appeared on the list of 20 coaches. 

Brooks held Belmont steady through a transition to the more competitive MVC, making a run to the MVC championship game before falling to Drake. Brooks and the Bruins have made the NCAA Tournament in all but one of his seasons in Nashville (2019-20 season excluded), including first-round victories in both 2021 and 2022.

Gillespie took over a Redbirds team in 2017-18 that had gone just 18-73 over the prior three seasons. In her six seasons in Normal, she has put up a 111-70 record overall and has brought the team to postseason play in each of the last three seasons. She has excelled at producing transfer and recruiting success stories, coaching four of the last six MVC Newcomer of the Year winners.

Warren, the dean of MVC women's basketball coaches, is a three-time Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year along with being the longest-tenured active women's head coach in the Valley with 16 seasons of action. In those 16 seasons, she has recorded 306 total wins with 193 coming in conference play. Both of those marks are third all-time on conference charts. Under her direction, the Panthers have appeared in postseason play in 13 of the last 14 full seasons (excluding 2019-20 because of COVID restrictions) including back-to-back NCAA Tournament berths in 2010 and 2011. 

This year’s watch list includes coaches from 16 conferences. Nine of the 20 coaches had players named to our 2024 Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year preseason watch list. This is the inaugural season for the award. 

Award Eligibility & Schedule
To be eligible for the award, coaches must compete in one of the 26 conferences deemed to be “mid-major.” The following conferences are considered high-major for the purposes of this award, and thus ineligible: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC. Interim head coaches are eligible, although total games coached will be taken into consideration.

In January, the 10-person midseason watch list will be announced. The five finalists for the award will be announced in March, with the winner being named around the Final Four. Coaches will be assessed across the entire season, including postseason play. Beyond on-court success, other factors such as recruiting, preseason expectations, injuries, and tactical coaching will also be weighed when assessing each candidate. Inclusion on previous watch lists is not a requirement to be considered for future watch lists.

 
About Kathy Delaney-Smith
Delaney-Smith’s Harvard teams compiled a record of 630-434 (.592) in her 40-year career, including a 367-168 (.685) record in Ivy League play. Delaney-Smith’s 630 wins rank 29th in Division I history, and ninth among coaches who spent their entire career with a single team.

Delaney-Smith led her teams to six NCAA Tournament appearances and nine WNIT appearances, plus three Ivy League titles before the NCAA Tournament awarded automatic bids to the Ivy League champion. She has coached eight Ivy League Player of the Year recipients, six Ivy League Rookie of the Year winners, and all 21 of Harvard’s 1,000-point scorers in program history.

Delaney-Smith was inducted into the Massachusetts Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1986, becoming the first woman to ever be inducted, with more than three decades of her career still ahead of her. She was also inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003.

A native of Newton, Mass., Delaney-Smith is also among the most accomplished high school players and coaches in the state’s history. She was the first woman in state history to score 1,000 points while at Sacred Heart High School. As a high school coach, Delaney-Smith coached Westwood High School to an overall record of 204-31 across 11 seasons, including a 96-game winning streak.

About Her Hoop Stats
Her Hoop Stats was founded in 2017 to unlock better insight about women's basketball at all levels. We began as a statistics site focused on providing consistent, reliable, and easy-to-access data about women's basketball for both mobile and desktop environments. Her Hoop Stats has expanded to become a leading independent voice in the women's game providing content through our newsletter, podcast network, YouTube channel, and social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram).