In her third year of a major rebuild at Bradley, Kate Popovec-Goss reflects on the journey

In Nov. 2022, The Next profiled Popovec-Goss’ journey to becoming a head coach, and on Sunday, The Next caught up with her again, now in year 3 of her tenure, to check in on the rebuild after a 67-57 loss to Northwestern. Popovec-Goss previously coached for Joe McKeown and the Wildcats for five seasons.

So far this year, the Braves are 5-4 overall and 4-4 against NCAA opponents. This comes after finishing 4-28 (1-19 MVC) in Popovec-Goss’ first season and 6-26 (2-18 MVC) last year. Popovec-Goss discussed the challenges of her tenure and what keeps her optimistic about the future.

The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity:

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The Next: What’s it like for you to be back at Northwestern?

Kate Popovec-Goss: Emotional. I’ve said it to a few people. I owe Northwestern so much. Two degrees from here, won a Big Ten Championship as a coach here, I met my husband here. It is emotional. The big thing about me is, I wanted to step between the lines and win because I’m a competitor, and I know Coach McKeown would’ve wanted nothing else. In the same token, though, what makes me so emotional about it is that I know what Northwestern gave me, and it was the people, and they put me in a position to be where I’m at now.

That’s the experience that we’re trying to cultivate at Bradley for our players. I hope when they walk away from their experience with me, with Bradley, with our coaching staff, that they feel the same sense of pride when they walk through the doors and when they get to see their coaches and their friends and their teammates like I did today. No one can take that from you. No one can take the lessons that you learn and the things that you build. I feel really confidently in my team right now that that’s what we’re building, and so for me, that’s why I obviously love this place, I’m forever indebted to it, I’m forever indebted to the head coach I got to coach against today. I just hope that the players that we impact feel that same impact and feel that same sense of pride. It was great to be back. Definitely bittersweet. I wish we had gotten the win. I thought my kids played really hard.

The Next: How would you evaluate where the program is now, three years into your head coaching tenure?

Popovec-Goss: It’s been tough. It’s really hard to rebuild programs. I think there’s one person that could tell you that, and that’s Coach McKeown. He took over this place, and they’d won [three] Big Ten games in two years. It takes time. As coaches, it’s hard for us to remember that because we are competitors, and we want results. That’s our job. But I know for me, it always comes down to people, it always comes down to relationships and it always comes down to the process of what you’re building.

I really love where we’re at. I know I have a team of people that have bought in. Every single day, we get 100% out of this group. And every single day, they try and improve. Every single day when we challenge them, they meet the challenge. And that’s the hardest part. The Xs and Os, recruiting, all that kind of stuff takes care of itself when you have a culture like that. And I think this year, our culture is really reflective of what I want. We’re tough, we’re gritty, we’re willing to compete. And more importantly, they really love each other. They trust each other. And there’s a lot of joy in what we do, too. In the world of college basketball sometimes that joy is hard to cultivate, and when you have a team that brings it, it makes them a lot easier to coach. I’m really pleased with where we’re at, and I’m excited to continue to see how we progress.

The Next: Is that culture better this year than the first two years, or is that something you’ve been happy with the whole time?

Popovec-Goss: It’s definitely at its highest point right now. And again, it takes time. I think sometimes you have to go through the battles. We have five returners that have been with me for a year or two, and they know what the last two years felt like in terms of losing, and it’s hard, and we’ve had different people come in. I think right now where the culture’s at, it’s a result of the belief that we have of the people that stayed and also finding the right people that fit how I want to coach and how we want to play, so I think you’re kind of seeing a perfect storm of now just the culture but also our identity, our style of play all coming together, which is where you hope to be in year two or three of building your program. I’m just really pleased because again, I think it is a process, and now in a world where it’s so easy to abandon the process because you can transfer and do those things, those five returners that we’ve had for the past couple years really laid the foundation, and then the newcomers that we did bring in, whether they’re freshmen or whether they’re transfers, they had such a positive mentality and a great impact on what we’re trying to do, and so that’s been a lot of fun.

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The Next: What have been the biggest surprises or challenges for you since becoming a head coach?

Popovec-Goss: I think the biggest challenge you have is reminding yourself that it is a process. I always tell my team, it’s about the process not outcome. It’s really hard to remember that when you’re a head coach, when you’re measured by the outcome. So I think that that’s been the hardest challenge for us is just being patient in the process and also learning to take it day by day. I think the other hardest part is, as a head coach, your mistakes are always on display. What no one talks about in head coaching: You make 10 times more mistakes than anyone in your program, any assistant, any player. And what you would challenge your kids when they make mistakes is to learn and adjust from them; you have to do that yourself, and you also have to do it with grace, and I think that I’m surrounded with a lot of really great people that continue to support me, continue to help us grow, really invest in the team.

The Next: Anything else you want to add?

Popovec-Goss: It was great to be back. Proud of my team. I’m really excited to see how we continue to progress. We’ve got two big games coming up in Orlando, we get to go home for Christmas and then we hit conference. I truly feel our conference is one of the best mid-major conferences in the country, so games like tonight, games like Illinois, all the games that we’ve really played in the non-conference, they’re going to prepare us for that, and I think the biggest thing is, my team just needs to continue to trust the process of what’s going to happen for us, and so do I.