Mike Bradbury, previously the head coach at Wright State University for the past six seasons, has been named the new head women’s basketball coach by Vice President for Athletics Paul Krebs. The hire is pending final HR approval, and Bradbury will be introduced at a press conference at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at WisePies Arena in the U.S. Bank Club Level.
Bradbury brings with him to Albuquerque nine successful years as a Division I head coach, the past six with Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. With the Raiders, Bradbury led his squad to five 20-win seasons, including each of the last three seasons. In the last three seasons, Wright State has amassed a 75-28 record, the best amongst the 13 Division I programs in the state of Ohio.
“I am excited to have Mike Bradbury lead our women’s basketball program,” said Vice President of Athletics Paul Krebs. “We looked at a lot of candidates, and Mike rose to the top with his past successes, both as a head coach at Wright State and Morehead State and as an assistant. Mike has a great reputation as a recruiter, as a coach and as an educator, and I’m proud to welcome him, his wife Christy and his two children Alex and Sena Nicole to the Lobo family.”
Overall he had five winning seasons, all of which were 20-win seasons, in his six at Wright State, a feat made all the more remarkable as Wright State had just one winning season in the previous 22 before his arrival. In the previous 37 seasons of women’s basketball at Wright State, the Raider program had tallied 20 wins just once before Bradbury led the team to 20 wins in five of his six seasons.
His latest stellar three-year run started in 2013-14, when the Raiders won a school record 26 games on the way to a 26-9 seasons and the program’s first-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament. That season saw the Raiders finish second in the Horizon League and win its first Horizon League Tournament. It also featured the program’s first road win at perennial league power Green Bay. Kim Demmings was named the Horizon League Player of the Year and Tournament MVP, and it marked the first time in school history the program had a pair of first team All-Conference selections.
He followed up that cam by earning Horizon League Coach of the Year in 2014-15 after a 25-9 season that saw his squad lose its Horizon League Preseason Player of the Year less than two minutes into the season opener. The Raiders just missed a second straight NCAA Tournament appearance, falling in overtime in the conference championship game. The team did make its first appearance in the Women’s NIT as the league’s automatic qualifier, and in 2015-16, the team made it back-to-back WNIT appearances after a 24-11 season, earning the program’s first at-large bid.
Overall, those three seasons are the three winningest seasons in the history of Wright State women’s basketball.
In his first two seasons at Wright State, he led the team to a 20-13 mark and a 21-13 mark and berths in the Women’s Basketball Invitational, the first NCAA Division I postseason berths for the program. Overall, Bradbury has coached three Horizon League Players of the Year (all in the last three seasons), six first team All-Horizon League players, three second team members, four All-Freshman team members.
Prior to his time at Wright State, Bradbury was the head coach at Morehead State, where he led the Division I program to a 50-44 mark in three seasons, including a watershed 22-11 season, which remains the second-most wins in Morehead State history and the most wins by the Eagles in the last 38 years.
At Morehead State over his three seasons he coached one Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year, along with one first team All-OVC pick (two seasons) and three second team All-OVC picks.
Bradbury also has spent time as an assistant coach at Xavier (2002-06), Cincinnati (1996-02), VCU (1995-96), East Tennessee State (1994-95) and Chattanooga (1991-94). In his 25 seasons as an assistant and as a head coach, Bradbury has had 22 winning seasons.
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