Ben O\u2019Brien is leaving the University of Scranton to become women\u2019s basketball head coach at Lafayette College, the university announced Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien went 117\u20137 (.943) leading the Lady Royals to four Landmark Conference Championships (2023, 2024, 2025, 2026) and four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. Scranton advanced to three straight NCAA Elite Eight rounds (2024\u201326), reached the program\u2019s first NCAA Final Four in 2026, and earned a berth in the NCAA National Championship game that same season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to thank Ben O\u2019Brien for his outstanding leadership of the Lady Royals basketball program over these last four years,\u201d Executive Director of Athletics Dave Martin said in a press release. \u201cCoach O\u2019Brien built on the history and tradition of our women\u2019s basketball program and provided us with many exciting moments that captivated the Scranton community. Under Ben\u2019s direction, our team reached new competitive heights while representing Scranton in a manner that made Royals everywhere proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scranton will begin a national search for O\u2019Brien\u2019s replacement, Martin said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien became the fastest coach in men\u2019s or women\u2019s college basketball history at any level to reach 100 career wins and tied for the fastest in any collegiate sport. He also led Scranton to a landmark victory as the first NCAA Division III women\u2019s basketball team to defeat a Power 4 opponent when the Lady Royals defeat the University of Pittsburgh this season.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien was named D3hoops.com National Coach of the Year in 2026. He was also a WBCA National Coach of the Year finalist in 2023 and 2026, the D3hoops.com Region 5 Coach of the Year in 2026, and a two-time Landmark Conference Coach of the Year (2023, 2026).<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien helped develop three All-Americans and multiple all-region and all-conference selections. His players earned two All-Region Player of the Year honors, one All-Region Rookie of the Year award, and multiple Landmark Conference major awards, including Player, Defensive Player, and Rookie of the Year distinctions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am incredibly thankful for my time at the University of Scranton,\u201d O\u2019Brien said in the press release. \u201cIt has been an honor to coach such an outstanding group of student-athletes and to be part of a special community. I\u2019m grateful for the support from our administration, alumni, and fans throughout this journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lafayette was 11-19 overall this season and 7-11 in the Patriot League. The Leopards lost in the first round of the conference playoffs to Army West Point, 65-57. On March 23, the Easton school announced that Kia Damon-Olson, who was head coach for nine seasons, would not return.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, O\u2019Brien becomes the first male coach in the history of Lafayette\u2019s women\u2019s basketball program and the eighth overall. He also is the second former Lady Royals coach in the Patriot League. Trevor Woodruff just completed his seventh season at Bucknell University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben O\u2019Brien is leaving the University of Scranton to become women\u2019s basketball head coach at Lafayette College, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2300,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-173233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-college-sports","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}