Bemidji State names Madison McKeever women’s basketball coach

Bemidji State is betting Madison McKeever can help pull its women’s basketball program out of a two-year slide that included a 9-17 finish and a 6-16 mark in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. Britt Lauritsen, the university’s director of athletics, announced McKeever as the Beavers’ 11th head coach on May 20.

McKeever takes over after Chelsea Stoltenberg resigned following 11 seasons at the helm. Stoltenberg was hired June 5, 2015, as the program’s 10th head coach, and her exit closes a long run that gave Bemidji State a familiar face on the sideline. The new hire now inherits a team that went 6-20 overall and 4-18 in the NSIC the season before last, leaving little doubt that the immediate task is stability as much as style.

The appeal for Bemidji State is as much regional as it is basketball-related. McKeever is from Erskine, Minnesota, played four seasons at the University of South Dakota, and was selected for the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s “So You Want To Be A Coach” program. She scored 1,096 career points for the Coyotes and finished her senior season averaging 8.8 points, 3.3 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.8 steals per game.

Her coaching path has also kept her close to the Upper Midwest. McKeever spent two seasons at Concordia University-St. Paul, where she was promoted to top assistant before the 2021-22 season. At the University of St. Thomas, she recently completed her fourth season, including three years as first assistant and a 2022-23 role as director of operations.

That background matters in a place like Bemidji, where recruiting Minnesota and nearby markets can define how quickly a program turns over its roster and its results. McKeever arrives with a résumé built in the same region Bemidji State needs to win, and the Beavers will be watching whether that familiarity translates into better local recruiting, stronger player retention and a more consistent on-court identity before the 2026-27 season opens. If it does, the change at the top will be visible long before the first conference standings update.