ATLANTA – Head coach
Lisa Fortier was named a semifinalist for the 2024 Werner Ladder Naismith Women's College Coach of the Year, the Atlanta Tipoff Club announced on Thursday. The award recognizes outstanding performance by college basketball coaches and is one of the most prestigious awards in the sport.
In her 10th season at the helm, Fortier has led Gonzaga to a remarkable 30-3 record so far this season, including a perfect 16-0 in the West Coast Conference. The Zags won the WCC Regular Season Title, which marked GU's 19th overall and Fortier's eighth. She was most recently named WCC Coach of the Year for the sixth time in her career.
This season, Fortier also reached 250 career wins, including the highest ranked win in program history over No. 3 Stanford. She currently sits at currently sits at 263-62 in her career. Among active Division I coaches, she is fifth in winning percentage at 80.9%.
The finalists for the award will be announced on March 25.
Naismith Women's Coach of the Year Semifinalists
| NAME |
SCHOOL |
CONFERENCE |
| Jennie Baranczyk |
Oklahoma |
BIG 12 |
| Lisa Bluder |
Iowa |
BIG TEN |
| Kenny Brooks |
Virginia Tech |
ACC |
| Lisa Fortier |
Gonzaga |
WCC |
| Lindsay Gottlieb |
USC |
PAC-12 |
| Felisha Legette-Jack |
Syracuse |
ACC |
| Kevin McGuff |
Ohio State |
BIG TEN |
| Vic Schaefer |
Texas |
BIG 12 |
| Dawn Staley |
South Carolina |
SEC |
| Tara VanDerveer |
Stanford |
PAC-12 |
THE NAISMITH AWARDS®
Named in honor of Dr. James Naismith, the creator of the game of basketball, the first Naismith trophy was awarded in 1969 to UCLA's Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The trophy was sculpted by Marty C. Dawe of Atlanta and has become among the most prestigious national honors awarded each year to top basketball players in the nation. The Naismith Women's Player of the Year Award was first given to Anne Donovan of Old Dominion University in 1983.
The Naismith Men's and Women's College Coach of the Year Award were established in 1987 and were originally given to the coaches of the men's and women's NCAA Division I Tournament Champions. In 1989, the governing board changed the selection criteria to the voting process used today in which the Atlanta Tipoff Club's Board of Selectors first votes to compile a top 25 list of coaches for each award. Then, through additional votes, the list is narrowed down to four and finally, the national winner.
