Bart Lundy has been named the head coach of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men’s basketball team.
Lundy comes to UWM after a very successful nine-year run at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina, posting a 30-4 record during the recently-completed 2021-22 campaign. He took his program to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh year in a row this season, advancing all the way to the Southeast Regional Championship game.
This winter, the team reached No. 4 in the national poll to mark the seventh straight year Queens will finish ranked in the Top 25 of the NABC national poll as well as make an appearance in the Top 10 over the course of the campaign. In fact, his teams have been ranked in the Top 25 in 111 of the last 112 polls dating back to November of 2015.
Lundy becomes the eighth head coach since Milwaukee’s 1990 move to NCAA Division I.
“Coach Lundy is deeply committed to the success of student-athletes, both on and off the court,” said UWM Chancellor Mark Mone. “And he has a remarkable track record as a mentor and head coach. We look forward to some great basketball seasons ahead.”
Lundy will be formally introduced as the new head coach during a news conference the week of March 28.
“Today is an exciting day as we get set to welcome Coach Lundy and his family to Milwaukee,” Director of Athletics Amanda Braun said. “We want our program to be led by an experienced head coach who is a proven winner, recruits high-level student-athletes of good character, and is highly regarded by his peers. Bart Lundy exemplifies all of these qualities and more.”
Lundy’s resume is especially impressive over the past six seasons, posting 30-plus victories in four of them while registering a 163-30 mark (.845 winning percentage) in that stretch. His run of three consecutive seasons of 30-or-more victories from 2016 to 2019 (32/30/31) was matched only by Gonzaga across all NCAA levels in that timeframe. His team complied a 17-game winning streak this season – which was snapped in a last-second loss to No. 1 Augusta to close out the 2022 NCAA Tournament run last week – marking the eighth straight winter his teams have gone on winning streaks of at least eight games in a row.
The Royals reached the NCAA Division II Final Four in 2017-18 and the Elite Eight again in 2018-19, as well as advancing to the Sweet 16 on two occasions (2017/2022). Lundy had his team as the top seed in the tournament in 2017 and 2019 and the No. 2 seed in 2019, 2020, and 2022. His overall record in the NCAA Tournament is an impressive 13-6.
“We conducted an extensive search and spoke with an incredible group of candidates. Coach Lundy rose to the top as the best fit for UWM,” Braun said. “He cares deeply about his teams and is truly concerned with the welfare of his student-athletes. He is very engaging and will build great relationships with the players and with the Milwaukee community. I have no doubt Coach Lundy will take our program to a high level and make our Panther fans proud.”
Lundy is the winningest coach in Queens basketball history, posting a record of 333-103 (.764 win pct.) and a career coaching record of 429-190 (.693) in his 20 seasons as a head coach in NCAA Division I and Division II. In 2018-19, Lundy was named South Atlantic Conference Coach of the Year and Southeast Region Coach of the Year (NABC) after leading the team to a 31-5 record. Queens won the SAC regular-season championship and repeated as Southeast Regional champions to advance to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in program history. That also marked a third consecutive season of 30-or-more wins and he has now finished first or second in eight straight regular seasons of South Atlantic Conference play. In the classroom, he has graduated every player to exhaust their eligibility since 2016 and seen his program post a team GPA over 3.0 each of the past four years.
Lundy returned to Queens after a one-year stint as an assistant at the University of North Texas (2012-13). Prior to North Texas, Lundy was on the staff at Marquette University where he assisted head coach Buzz Williams for three years (2009-2012). In that time, Marquette made three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances and two-straight Sweet 16 appearances with a roster that featured eight future NBA players including Jimmy Butler and Jae Crowder.
In his time leading the Royals, Lundy has guided Queens to all four of its Elite Eight appearances, nine NCAA Tournament berths, six conference regular-season titles, and three conference tournament titles. Lundy was recognized as the Conference Carolinas Coach of the Year in 2000-2001, Southeast Region Coach of the Year in 2003, and has coached one National Player of the Year, four conference players of the year, 25 first-team all-conference selections, 11 second-team honorees, six all-freshman selections, and all seven All-Americans in program history. Under Lundy’s direction, Queens spent 65 consecutive weeks ranked in the coaches’ poll (1,498 days from Nov. 2015 to December 2019) for the longest such streak in program history.
Lundy has also done an impressive job developing players, with 24 former Queens players having played professionally over the past nine seasons, highlighted by four NBA G-League players as well as Todd Withers, who signed a contract with the Detroit Pistons in the National Basketball Association following the NBA Summer League slate in 2019.
