DePaul announced Friday morning that longtime women's basketball coach Doug Bruno will step down after 39 years of leading the Blue Demon. He leaves the post with 786 wins. This is the 11th of all Division I women's basketball coaches.
The 74-year-old Bruno briefly coached DePaul in the mid-1970s before heading off to coach Chicago's Hustle in the short-lived women's basketball league. After the league disbanded, Bruno was a male assistant to Loyola Chicago for several seasons before returning to DePaul in 1988.
During his nearly four years leading the Blue Demons, DePaul was a mid-major powerhouse, becoming a regular in the NCAA Tournament and continuing to win when he joined the Big East in 2005.
The Blue Demons were ranked in the 221-week AP Top 25 polls, while Bruno was ranked 7th in the 2010-11 season. Bruno also had 15 players drafted by WNBA teams, including All-Star Ally Quigley.
Bruno also won two gold medals as Team USA assistant coach in 2012 and 2016, and was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022.
He missed most of this past season during his medical leave. He will remain at DePaul as a special assistant to the vice president/director of women's basketball athletics.
DePaul currently has coaching vacancy late in the carousel cycle, but many in the sport see it as a great job.
“Dewayne Peevy is a star as athletic director,” an agent told SB Nation. “He gets great coaches and supports them, and we can argue that DePaul is the best job left and that it is the best job that opened up this cycle.
The longtime assistant coach said, “The facilities are in good condition and the pay is expected to be solid.”
Sources told SB Nation that DePaul is also working to put revenue sharing funds into women's basketball as the home settlement progresses. Without FBS football, DePaul and other major nations' schools could have an advantage in their House era. The settlement opens up how Division I programs will share revenue directly with athletes for the first time. Schools on FBS football teams could push most of these resources towards the sport, but without that, institutions would likely give male and female basketball the biggest part of their revenue sharing pie.
“I think that's an advantage for us.” He spoke to Front Office Sports. “I don't earn money from soccer, but I don't pay for soccer either.”
Duke Athletic Director Nina King I told Yahoo Sports: “In the Big East, the revenue share portion of basketball is much more than we can do with a Division I power football program.”
The revenue sharing era could make Big East jobs more attractive than five years ago. The Big East has received two bids for the NCAA Tournament this season. Honestly, everyone else in the league plays second. uconn – But that image can change as a team invests more in the sport, which could lead to landing more talented players and winning more games. Bruno knew how to get talented players like Anesa Moreau, but he couldn't compete with anything like the SEC program. LSU It was offered in NIL packages for her service. Revenue sharing could level the arena a bit.
“It's a great opening,” another agent told SB Nation.
A source said he expects DePaul to hire a sitting head coach.
This is someone who might be in the mix to take over Bruno.
Burt Brooks
Brooks was an assistant under Bruno for 11 seasons, then scored a head job at Belmont, earning a 197-67 coaching record in eight seasons. This is a win rate of 74.6. He took Belmont to four NCAA tournaments and won over 21 games each season of his job. His success at Belmont, coupled with his familiarity with DePaul's relationship with Bruno, gives Brooks a strong fit.
Carly Thibaut Dadonis
Thibault-Dudonis is happy at Fairfield, 74-22 in three seasons, taking the stag to back-to-back NCAA tournaments, but at some point she could level up and test herself in a tougher league. Over the past two years, several Power 4 athletic directors have called her about the opening, and she politely declined. However, the job may be attractive to her because of the way DePaul supports and invests in women's basketball.
Carrie Moore
Moore, who had just made Harvard appear in his first NCAA tournament since 2007, knew of Midwest Well, who played for West Michigan, who won the NCAA as a senior in 2007, and later worked as an assistant coach for Clayton and Michigan. Moore also worked for Courtney Bangart in Princeton and for several years at North Carolina. She is promoted as a talented recruiter, and is 39 years old and one of the best young head coaches in the sport. Under her watch this year, Harvard had his best season in over a decade.
Erin Dickerson Davis
Dickerson Davis is a Chicago native and has performed at Northwestern and is a former assistant coach at Big East, so he is familiar with the landscape DePaul is active. As an assistant at Georgetown, she signed four players to become the All-Big East Selection. However, Dickerson Davis is an attractive coaching candidate as he succeeded with William and Mary this season. She led the tribe to the first NCAA Tournament Bertz and first March Madness victory, earning high points in the first four. Simply put, Dickerson Davis won his third season in a place his coach hadn't had before.
Kristen Gillespie
About three hours south of DePaul, Gillespie gained plenty of victory while leading the Redbirds. Gillespie, who played for Kay Yo in North Carolina, went 155-94 in eight Illinois seasons. In 2022, she led them to her first NCAA tournament in 14 years, winning the 2023 regular season conference title and the Missouri Valley Coach of the Year Award. Gillespie linked to Wisconsin and Missouri openings, which might be the best for her. Her father, Mike, also played for DePaul alongside Bruno in the early 1970s.
