An ex-Lexington high school hoops coach is now an NCAA Division I head man

In one of the more successful coaching runs in Kentucky college basketball history, Jeff Hans directed the Thomas More University women’s hoops team to six national championship games.

This spring, Hans, 46, has parlayed his robust success in small-college coaching into an NCAA Division I job as the new head women’s basketball coach at Northern Kentucky University.

Yet Hans says that neither coaching for college national championships nor breaking into NCAA Division I head coaching caused him to feel as much pressure as he did when he took over as head man of the Lexington Catholic High School girls basketball program in 2006.

At the time, the Knights were coming off back-to-back Kentucky girls high school basketball state championships.

“I probably felt more pressure (at Lexington Catholic), honestly,” Hans said last week. “Because the standard and expectations there were that you get (to the state tournament) and win the state.”

During the two seasons Hans coached at LexCath, the Knights went a combined 59-9 — but they lost in the 11th Region Tournament finals twice. Catholic fell to eventual state champ Lexington Christian Academy in 2007 and was upset by Henry Clay in 2008.

“We got beat in the region finals both years,” Hans said. “That was tough.”

Nevertheless, bear with me, and Hans will explain why he believes it was those two seasons coaching at Lexington Catholic that helped propel him into college head coaching.

After departing from LexCath, Hans served three years as an assistant at NKU under longtime Norse coach Nancy Winstel when Northern was still competing in NCAA Division II.

However, it was the 13 seasons (2011 through 2024) that Hans spent as head women’s hoops coach at Thomas More that, eventually, earned him a DI head coaching shot.

At Thomas More, Hans went an astounding 339-42. He led the Saints to three NCAA Division III national championships (one of which was subsequently vacated by the NCAA in an “extra benefits” case because the Thomas More star player had lived with an assistant coach and his family over a protracted period while recuperating from surgery).

Once Thomas More transitioned to NAIA, Hans directed the Saints to another national title plus two national runner-up finishes.

All in all, what Hans did at Thomas More is one of the best runs a Kentucky college basketball coach has ever produced at any level in our state’s history.

“I don’t know how we did it, but we did it,” Hans says. “Lot of good players in there, for sure.”

When NKU parted ways with previous women’s hoops coach Camryn Volz (nee Whitaker), the former Kentucky Wildcats assistant, after going 11-20 last season, Hans said he was immediately intrigued by the possibility of pursuing a NCAA Division I head coaching vacancy in the area where he already worked. The campuses of Northern Kentucky and Thomas More are 8.1 miles apart.

Though Volz went 95-106 in her eight seasons as NKU coach, Hans said the success of the Northern Kentucky men’s hoops program — four Horizon League Tournament titles since 2017 — convinces him that Norse women’s basketball has a high ceiling that has yet to be reached.

“Try to compete in the Horizon League as much as we can, year in and year out, be successful,” Hans says of his vision for NKU women’s hoops. “Try to make and then see what we can do in a NCAA Tournament. See if we can win a (NCAA tourney) game or two, then see what can happen from there moving forward.”

In his first year as a NCAA Division I head man, Hans says he will be bringing his new team back to the city where he once took on that high-pressure high school coaching job at Lexington Catholic.

Hans says NKU will play the Kentucky Wildcats early in November. UK, of course, is breaking in its own new coach with ex-Virginia Tech head man Kenny Brooks.

“Some dumb new coach (scheduled that game) — and I’m not talking about Coach Brooks,” Hans joked.

Besides the publicity that comes from playing UK, Hans says he wants to provide the Kentucky natives on the NKU roster who grew up following Wildcats basketball, women’s and men’s, the experience of playing against the Cats.

The coach Hans succeeded at Lexington Catholic, Greg Todd, is now the head women’s hoops coach at Eastern Kentucky University. One wonders how many other high schools can claim that two ex-coaches from one of their sports programs are currently NCAA Division I head men?

Hans says the two years he spent coaching star-caliber players at Lexington Catholic such as Briana Green (UTEP, Harlem Globetrotters), Natalie Novosel (Notre Dame, WNBA’s Washington Mystics) and Keyla Snowden (Akron, Kentucky) helped make possible his move into and success in college coaching.

“The connections I was able to make at the college level, talking to college coaches about their recruiting process, kind of helped me get to where I am at now,” Hans says. “Just knowing who I am talking to in talking to people when I am out on the road (recruiting). And, also, just how to do things in a lot of ways.”

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