With the college women's basketball season right around the corner, Hillsdale College women's basketball coach Brianna Brennan will take one more moment to reflect on a glorious 2024-25 campaign this weekend.

Brennan was named the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan's 2024-25 College Women's Basketball Coach of the Year in April, and will receive the award in person at BCAM's annual Coaches Clinic on Saturday at Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

In just her second season as head coach of the Chargers, Brennan led Hillsdale to heights not seen in nearly a decade and a half. The Chargers went 21-9 in the regular season with 16 G-MAC victories, both the most by a Hillsdale women's basketball team since the 2008-09 season. Hillsdale pulled a stunning upset of nationally-ranked Ferris State, 76-61 in December and took off from there to finish runner-up in the G-MAC, its best finish in conference play since that 2008-09 campaign. That finish was thanks in large part to hard-fought and dramatic road victories over three other G-MAC title contenders -- Northwood, Findlay and Malone -- all involving second-half comebacks by seven points or more. The Chargers won quarterfinal and semifinal games in the G-MAC Tournament, and pushed eventual G-MAC champion Ashland on its home floor, trailing the Eagles by two points with the ball with under two and a half minutes to play before falling short.

Hillsdale's performance was enough to get the Chargers their first NCAA Tournament bid since 2017, earning one of the five at-large bids up for grabs in the Midwest Region. As the six seed, Hillsdale battled third-seeded favorite Northern Michigan in a close contest in the opening round, cutting it to a one-possession game twice in the final minute before falling in a 61-56 contest to the Wildcats.

Brennan played a huge role in the development and eventual success of the team, first as an assistant coach with the program for two years and then as the head coach the past two seasons. Under her watch in the 2024-25 campaign, Lauren McDonald and Caitlin Splain each earned first team All-G-MAC honors, and Splain became the program's all-time leader in career 3-pointers made.

Prior to Hillsdale, Brennan spent two years as a graduate assistant with Eastern Illinois, working with a program that posted a 30-27 record the past two seasons and made the Ohio Valley Conference tournament in both 2020 and 2021.

A Michigan native who grew up in Woodhaven, a suburb of Detroit, and starred at Woodhaven High School, Brennan played three years of women's basketball at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, helping the Knights to two NCAA Tournament appearances during her time with the team and finishing 11th in Gannon history in career blocked shots with 80.

Brennan also starred on Gannon's volleyball team as a middle blocker, appearing in the NCAA Tournament in both 2016 and 2017 and helping the Knights to their first-ever NCAA Division II Final Four appearance in volleyball in 2017.

During her time at Gannon, she also created the Shooting for Smiles Basketball Clinic, developing and helping fund and direct an annual basketball camp for people with special needs.

After graduating from Gannon in 2017 with a B.A. in Education, Brennan spent a year coaching at the AAU level with the Erie Irish program, as well as teaching in the Fairview School District in Fairview, Pennsylvania, before taking the graduate assistant job at Eastern Illinois. She also earned a master's degree in Sports Administration while coaching the Panthers, in 2021.

Brennan is 38-22 as the head coach of the Chargers and has hopes of another strong season in 2025-26 despite heavy graduation losses. Hillsdale does return a strong post presence in Savannah Smith and Ellie Bruce, as well as sharpshooters on the outside in Annalise Pietrzyk and Emma Ruhlman, and supplements a solid group of returning players with what should be a strong freshman class.