In her final season as an assistant coach at Nebraska, Dani Busboom Kelly has been tabbed as the AVCA Division I National Assistant Coach of the Year.
Busboom Kelly will take over as head coach at Louisville after the Huskers run in the NCAA Tournament ends. Louisville announced that Busboom Kelly had accepted the job on Nov. 27 but agreed to allow her to finish the season with Nebraska.
Busboom Kelly, a four-year starter for the Huskers during her playing career, has spent the last five years as an assistant for John Cook at Nebraska and Cook has credited Busboom Kelly with upgrading Nebraska’s recruiting efforts.
Nebraska has brought in top 10 recruiting classes in each of the last two years, and the Huskers won the 2015 NCAA Championship with Busboom Kelly on the sidelines. She has worked with liberos, setters and outside hitters in addition to taking a lead role in recruiting, and the Huskers have gone 138-30, reached five sweet 16s and two Final Fours in her five seasons on the staff.
This season, the Huskers went 28-2 during the regular season and captured the Big Ten title for the first time since 2011. In the NCAA Tournament, Nebraska swept New Hampshire and TCU in the first weekend and beat Penn State in five and swept Washington last weekend to advance to the Final Four in Columbus. The Huskers will take on Tennessee on Thursday night.
Before returning to Nebraska to join Cook’s staff, Busboom Kelly spent two seasons at Tennessee and one at Louisville as an assistant.
Jacob is in his third year with Hail Varsity covering Husker athletics. He has also written extensively for SB Nation’s Bright Side of the Sun and The Creightonian. His love of basketball can best be described as an obsession and if you need to find him, he’s probably in a gym somewhere watching, coaching or playing hoops.
