Coaching Carousel: After elevating UW-Oshkosh to national success, Brad Fischer pursuing Division I coaching opportunity
Fischer leaves Oshkosh as the program's all-time winningest coach with a 315-80 record over 14 seasons with the Titans
It has been an all-time year in the Division III women’s basketball coaching carousel. At least as far as the upper tier of the division goes.
2025 WBCA National Coach of the Year finalist Hannah Iverson made a major intra-conference move from UW-Stout to UW-Eau Claire that got the WIAC talking. Scranton’s Ben O’Brien left the Lady Royals for D1 Lafayette on the heels of a historic 32-1 campaign. Springfield’s Naomi Graves and Ithaca’s Dan Raymond retired after long (and successful) runs at their respective institutions. Ithaca and RPI hired top rising young assistants in Erin Hughes and Megan Yawman.
And five days into June, quite possibly the biggest coaching move of the offseason surfaced with news out of Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Friday. Brad Fischer is leaving UW-Oshkosh as he pursues a Division I opportunity.
Yes, the same Brad Fischer that guided the Titans to back-to-back Final Fours in each of the last two years. The same coach who took Oshkosh to the NCAA Tournament 11 times in 14 seasons, winning at least one game in each appearance. The same leader who, in 2012, inherited a program that hadn’t enjoyed a winning record in six years and took them to 13 straight years of 20-plus victories. Few coaches in the last two decades in Division III have rewritten a program’s history like Fischer. It could be easily argued nobody else has done it quite to the level he did it at, considering the longevity of his run at Oshkosh and the tremendous peaks of his tenure. After all, no other basketball coach—men’s or women’s—in the WIAC’s storied history has ever won 20 games in 13 straight seasons. He departs the program standing apart from the rest, a true giant in the Division III women’s hoops history book.
"Brad's accomplishments speak for themselves,” Oshkosh AD Darryl Sims said in a press release. “He transformed our program into one of the premier women's basketball programs in Division III, but what makes Brad truly special is the way he developed young women into leaders, professionals and champions in life.
”While we are certainly saddened to see Brad leave Oshkosh, we are equally excited for this next chapter in his career and wish him nothing but continued success. Opportunities to advance to the Division I level are a testament to the respect Brad has earned throughout collegiate basketball and a reflection of the exceptional work he has done here at UW-Oshkosh."
Fischer will leave big shoes to fill inside the Kolf Sports Center, even for as much high-level interest as the Oshkosh job is sure to garner. He built a program that consistently maintained its place at or near the top of a league known for its inconsistency, widespread parity, and unexpected outcomes. The Titans always seemed to keep the ship steady through the often rough waters of January and February in WIAC play, winning the WIAC regular season title five times since 2019 along with WIAC Tournament titles in 2015, 2016, 2019, and 2020.
"For 14 years, I gave everything I had to this university, this program, and the young women who wore our uniform," Fischer said in the release. "In return, UW-Oshkosh gave me far more than I could ever repay. While I am excited for this next chapter, I leave with a tremendous amount of gratitude. UW-Oshkosh has had a lasting impact on my life, and a piece of my heart will always be here."
Even for all of the accolades and achievements that came Oshkosh’s way in the Fischer era, it is noteworthy that the program never plateaued in its trajectory. History-making moments seem to seldom come to programs already embedded in the highest tier of the national pecking order, but at Oshkosh, those sorts of “firsts” kept coming. En route to a Final Four trip in 2025-26, Paige Seckar was named D3hoops.com Region 9 Rookie of the Year, making her the first player in program history to earn the honor. The year prior, a 60-53 win over Baldwin Wallace sent the Titans to their first national semifinal in 29 years. And one season before that, Oshkosh’s outright regular season WIAC title made Fischer’s team the first in league history to claim 15 regular season conference championships. The bar was never lowered under Fischer’s guidance, and the results were a reflection of that.
“Most importantly and above all, I want to thank our players,” Fischer said in his statement in the Oshkosh release. “Every player who ever said yes to be a Titan and lived that standard. The relationships we've built and the memories we've shared will stay with me forever."
His recruiting prowess fueled Oshkosh’s consistency, from finding top eastern Wisconsin high school talent from Taylor Schmidt (the program’s first WIAC Player of the Year since 1998) to Kayce Vaile (Oshkosh’s No. 3 all-time rebounding leader) to Seckar, who turned down at least one Division I offer out of Oshkosh West High to stay home and play for the Titans.
He also found the right transfers over the years, perhaps none more notable than current rising senior Sammi Beyer, who had a breakout season in 2024-25 after beginning her college career at D1 St. Thomas (MN). Fischer’s incoming recruiting class for 2026-27 also includes a pair of especially high-profile transfers in former Belmont starter Emily La Chappell and Olivia Witkowski, who started 22 games as a freshman at UW-Eau Claire last winter.
Now Fischer will take his exceptional recruiting and schematic talent to the Division I ranks at a program that I’m told will soon announce his hiring publicly. It will be Fischer’s first D1 coaching position in his career, though he has coached at virtually ever other level to this point. His resume includes high school experience (Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau HS, JUCO experience (Assistant at Western Wisconsin Technical College), D3 experience (Assistant at UW-La Crosse, HC at UW-Oshkosh), and D2 experience (Assistant at UW-Parkside).
Incredibly well-respected around Wisconsin and within the women’s basketball coaching community nationally, Fischer was lauded by many coaches on social media Friday afternoon after Oshkosh announced the news. In particular was Fairfield assistant Blake DuDonis, who was the head coach at UW-River Falls from 2019-22 before joining his wife, Carly Thibault-DuDonis, in building Fairfield into a mid-major powerhouse.
“I’m a better coach having had to compete against @UWOCoachFischer when I was in the WIAC, and grateful that we’ve been able to become friends over the years,” DuDonis wrote. “Excited for him and the program he’s joining; talk about a win-win!”
The next part of the conversation turns to Oshkosh’s future in this news, and who the Titan administration turns to for 2026-27. Coming off its two consecutive Final Four runs with a roster that includes last year’s top two scorers, Oshkosh is set up to be a Final Four contender yet again. That considered, along with the school’s geographic placement in Wisconsin and its facilities, Sims won’t lack a quality candidate pool when it comes time to make a hire. It is a high-profile job and one with enormous expectations for obvious reasons. Expect a number of sitting head coaches to put their names in the mix, though Oshkosh could go in several different directions with this hire. As we’ve seen from other WIAC hires this offseason, there is reason to think the administration can and will move quickly in getting its next head coach in place.
“A national search for the Titans' next head women's basketball coach will begin as soon as possible,” the Oshkosh release noted Friday, adding that day-to-day operations will be handled by Sims and assistant coach Abby Gildernick in the interim.
Oshkosh is the third WIAC head coaching job to open following the 2025-26 season. Additionally, two of the four teams from last season’s Final Four will be led by new coaches next winter, with Scranton having hired Rider assistant Kaitlyn Lewis earlier this week.