MTSU women’s basketball head coach Rick Insell will retire at the end of the season after 21 years at the helm of Lady Raider basketball, according to MTSU Athletics.
Over two decades at Middle Tennessee, Insell became the winningest head coach in program history, racking up 505 wins, 10 conference championships and making 12 NCAA tournament appearances.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think, well, one day I would be able to walk this floor around here,” Insell said of his time at MTSU. “ … 340 some days a year, I walked across that floor out there and thank the good Lord of him blessing me to be the head coach here.”
The nine-time hall of fame inductee is the only coach to win 500 games at both the college and high school level, winning 775 games and 10 state championships at Shelbyville Central High School in Shelbyville, Tennessee.
Insell, age 74, will finish the season as Middle Tennessee is set to play in the second round of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament at the Murphy Center. The Lady Raiders await the winner of St. Bonaventure University and Drexel University.
“I am not going to quit,” Insell said. “No, no, no, we’re going to go in this WNIT and try to win it.”
What’s next for the Lady Raiders?
In the same release, MTSU named associate head coach Matt Insell, Insell’s son, the next head coach of the Lady Raiders. Matt Insell joined his father’s staff eight years ago after serving as head coach at the University of Mississippi from 2013 to 2018.
Prior to Ole Miss, Matt Insell was an assistant at the University of Kentucky and worked as a student assistant and video coordinator at the University of Tennessee.
MTSU will formally introduce Matt Insell at a press conference on Tuesday at the Blue Raider Sports Hall of Fame.
“It’s a young man’s game now,” Rick Insell said.
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