Evansville North promotes Brad Elliott to girls basketball coach

Evansville North chose continuity over a clean break, approving Brad Elliott as its next girls basketball coach at the EVSC board meeting Monday. Elliott has been around North boys and girls basketball for the past 15 years, and his promotion keeps the program in familiar hands at a time when the Huskies are looking to climb back toward their better standards.

The move comes after Tyler Choate stepped down on Feb. 9 following 10 seasons in charge. Choate stayed on as athletic director and left with a program-record 158 victories, along with two sectional championships that helped define the most successful stretch in North’s recent history. That is the bar Elliott inherits, and it is a significant one for a Class 4A school that has made stability part of its identity.

North’s most recent season showed why the school may have valued a steady hand. The Huskies finished 9-14 and were bounced in the opening round of the 2026 Class 4A sectional by Castle, 53-36. That score told the story of a team that never found enough offense to extend its season, and it gave the new coach a clear offseason assignment: sharpen the attack, raise the scoring floor and make North harder to knock out when the bracket tightens.

Elliott was already positioned for that job. He had been on staff with the girls program since 2022 and served as a varsity assistant this past season, which means the players, routines and expectations will not be foreign to him. In a program with freshmen like Willow Stambush and Sofia Joyner on the 2025-26 roster, that familiarity matters. It gives North a coach who already knows which young players can become the core of the next run and what kind of development the current cycle needs.

For North, this hire reads less like a reset than a bet on institutional memory. Elliott knows the building, knows the pressure that comes with wearing North across the chest and knows the standard Choate established. Year one success does not need to mean a sectional title right away, but it does need to mean visible progress: a stronger record, better cohesion, and a roster that turns a 9-14 finish into the start of a climb rather than another step sideways.