Brenden Stowers leaves Simon Kenton girls basketball to join NKU coaching staff

Simon Kenton High School is looking for a new girls basketball coach as Brenden Stowers has left to join the coaching staff of the Northern Kentucky University women’s basketball team.

Stowers joins the staff of new NKU head coach Jeff Hans, who took over in April after 13 seasons as head coach at Thomas More University. Hans announced his full staff earlier this week.

Stowers, an NKU graduate and standout basketball player there, served as an assistant coach with the men’s basketball program after graduation.

Stowers replaced his father, Jeff, as SK girls head coach after the 2022 season. Jeff retired with 527 career wins.

In his first season in charge, Brenden Stowers led SK to the Eighth Region title and the Sweet 16 in 2023.

"Black and gold runs in my family's blood and the chance to give back to this university was a no-brainer decision for me and my family," Stowers said in a press release. "I am excited to get started and help Jeff take this program to a new level." "It is great to have Brenden back in the Norse family," Hans said. "Brenden excels in the X's and O's and will be instrumental in our player development. He is a hard worker that has a passion for NKU and will help us be successful on the court and in the classroom."

Stowers was also a video coordinator at Xavier University for two years, an assistant men's coach at Thomas More, and the assistant varsity girls coach at Simon Kenton from 2004-08. Stowers graduated from Simon Kenton in 1999 and was a standout with the Norse from 1999-2003. In his senior season at NKU, he was named the Co-Player of the Year in the Great Lakes Valley Conference and a Second Team NCAA Division II All-America.

Hans announced the rest of his staff Thursday, hiring Molly Bateman and Gabby Johnson, who also have plenty of local ties. Bateman will be the recruiting coordinator as well as an assistant coach.

Gabby Johnson was a former Thomas More standout player with Hans as her head coach.

She makes her return to the NKU sidelines as an assistant coach with the program, a role she held under legendary coach Nancy Winstel in the early 2010's. Johnson spent past two years as the assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at national power South Dakota.  She was also assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at DI Valparaiso and Butler. While at Valpo, she helped guide one of the nation's most impressive year-over-year turnarounds from 2019 to 2020. The Crusaders jumped 171 spots in the RPI, the largest leap by any NCAA Division I program that season.

Johnson also served six seasons as the head coach of Ohio Dominican University, an NCAA Division III program in Illinois.Johnson graduated from Thomas More with a bachelor's degree in accounting in 2009. There she led the Saints to three-straight NCAA Division III Tournament appearances as a player, reaching the Sweet 16 her senior season. She graduated with the third-most career assists in program history.

Bateman was assistant women's basketball coach and recruiting coordinator at Xavier for the past three years. She started as the Musketeers assistant athletics director for women's basketball in 2020 and was then promoted to assistant coach in 2021 and assistant coach and recruiting coordinator in 2022. No stranger to the Horizon League, Bateman served as an assistant coach at Detroit Mercy from 2015-20, where she added the title of recruiting coordinator for her last two seasons on the Titans sideline. Bateman helped the team advance to the Horizon League Championship game in 2017. She was also recognized as one of the top-30 up-and-coming women's basketball coaches nationally with an appearance on the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Thirty Under 30 in 2019. She also had previous coaching stops at Mount Union (2013-15) and Averett University (2011-13). She played at Defiance College from 2007-11, where she earned All-Conference honors as a senior. She holds a bachelor's degree in social work from Defiance College (2011) and a master's in business administration from Averett University (2013).

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Brenden Stowers leaves Simon Kenton for all-local NKU coaching staff