Des Moines native Jennie Baranczyk has built a culture of excellence in leading the Drake University women’s basketball program to the top of the Missouri Valley Conference and among the nation’s best. Under Baranczyk, who was named the sixth head women’s basketball coach at Drake University in April, 2012, the Bulldogs have won 20-plus games each of the past six consecutive seasons.
The impressive streak started with the 2014-15 season and includes winning three-straight regular season MVC titles from 2017-19 and two MVC Tournament titles during that time. The streak ties a conference and program record for most consecutive 20-plus winning seasons.
The Bulldogs earned three consecutive NCAA Tournament berths from 2017-19 and were projected to earn a fourth before the 2020 NCAA Tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. Three-straight NCAA Tournament appearances has only happened one other time in school history and four-straight berths would have been a first for Drake.
Baranczyk passed former Drake head coach Lisa Bluder for the most conference victories with 117 in program history with the 75-46 win at Loyola on Feb. 5, 2021. Baranczyk moved into sixth place among MVC’s leaders with the 68-64 win over the Ramblers the next night.
In addition to the success on the court, the program has ranked in the top 10 nationally in team grade point average each of the past six seasons and performed 1,000 or more community service hours in the Drake and Des Moines communities every school year since Baranczyk became head coach.
Baranczyk won back-to-back MVC Coach of the Year awards after her team’s historic 2017-18 and 2016-17 seasons. Each team went 18-0 in regular season conference play and then won the MVC Tournament in Moline, Ill. No MVC team has ever gone undefeated in regular season league action. The 2016-17 team finished with a 28-5 record that included a school and MVC record 22-game winning streak. Baranczyk was honored with her first MVC Coach of the Year award and at the national level by being named the espnW Mid-Major Coach of the Year.
During the 2016-17 and 2018-19 seasons, Drake spent multiple weeks ranked in the AP Top 25 poll, and in 2018 the team earned the program’s earliest ranking in a season since 2001 after it ranked No. 24 in the Nov. 26, 2018 poll. The 2018-19 team ranked No. 20 in the final RPI ranking while the 2019-20 squad finished No. 25. Baranczyk challenges her teams with tough non-conference schedules that include in-state Power 5 foes, Iowa and Iowa State, former MVC rival Creighton and top regional and national opponents. The 2018-19 team played the No. 2 toughest non-conference schedule in the nation with matchups against national runner-up Notre Dame, South Carolina, South Dakota, South Dakota State, Rutgers, Nebraska, Iowa, Iowa State and Creighton.
Under Baranczyk's leadership, student-athletes have accomplished numerous individual successes on the court and in the classroom. Three student-athletes have been named the Jackie Stiles MVC Player of the Year five times, including Becca Hittner and Lizzy Wendell. Hittner, an Urbandale, Iowa native and graduate of Dowling Catholic, won the MVC’s top player award each season from 2018-20 while Wendell claimed the award in 2017. Hittner is just the third Valley player to win the award three times in a career. She was also named a WBCA Honorable Mention All-American in 2020 and 2019. Wendell garnered the same WBCA honor in 2017 and earned AP All-America Honorable Mention accolades that year, the first AP honor for a Drake player since 2012.
In addition to five MVC Player of the Year honorees, there have been 24 all-conference selections, including a league-high 18 first team choices and a league-best 38 MVC Player of the Week winners during her tenure. In addition, Baranczyk has coached four MVC Freshmen of the Year honorees (Maddy Dean, Hittner, Sara Rhine and Wendell) and Sammie Bachrodt, who won the program’s first two MVC Defensive Player of the Year awards in 2018 and 2019. Rhine won the school’s first two MVC Sixth Player of the Year awards in 2016 and 2018.
Baranczyk's teams have been highly successful in the classroom during her tenure at Drake, starting in 2013-14 as each of her teams earned prestigious accolades from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association with the Top 25 Team Honor Roll. Drake has ranked in the top 10 for the prestigious WBCA team academic honor in six-straight seasons under Baranczyk. Individually, Rhine earned CoSIDA Academic All-America honors in 2018 (third team), 2019 (first team) and 2020 (first team) in addition to being the MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year each of those years. She is the first Bulldog to earn three academic all-America honors and the first MVC student-athlete to be named MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year three times. Hittner joined Rhine on the Academic All-American teams in 2019 (third team) and 2020 (second team) as Drake was the only school in the nation with two selections each of those years. Hittner and Rhine were each selected to the MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team from 2018-20. Former standout point guard Caitlin Ingle was also a three-time selection to the Valley's top academic team from 2015-17.
Ingle, who hailed from nearby Runnells, Iowa and played for Southeast Polk High School, graduated as Drake’s and the MVC’s all-time career assists leader. Bachrodt graduated as the school’s all-time career steals leader while Hittner is the school's all-time leader in three-point percentage and ranks No. 2 in career three-pointers, falling just eight short before the 2019-20 season ended early. Hittner and Rhine, who each surpassed 2,000 career points in 2019-20, joined Wendell in the 2,000 points club. Those three along with three others are the only 2,000-plus scorers in school history while Hittner, Rhine and Wendell are joined by just seven others in MVC history to accomplish the impressive scoring feat.
On a national level, Baranczyk served as an assistant coach at the 2017 USA Basketball Under 19 Team trials that Hittner attended. In addition, Baranczyk has been a featured speaker at multiple USA Basketball Coaches clinics held throughout the country. On the date of her hire, Baranczyk, who was 31 years old at the time, was the second-youngest Division I head women's basketball coach. Even as one of the younger Division I head coaches, she made an immediate impact in women's basketball as she attended the 2013 edition of The Center for Coaching Excellence (CCE). Along with 31 fellow WBCA-member college women's basketball coaches, she completed the invitation-only, two-and-a-half day elite leadership program hosted by Columbia University in New York City.
Baranczyk and her program are actively involved in the Des Moines community. Starting in 2013-14, the program has reached its goal of completing 1,000 community service hours in the Drake and Des Moines communities over the course of the academic year. Baranczyk previously was a member of the board for the Young Women's Resource Center in Des Moines. She was honored by the Business Record in June, 2017 by being named a 2017 Women of Influence honoree. The award celebrates the work of women who have made a difference.
Baranczyk came to Drake after a two-year stint as an assistant coach at the University of Colorado, where she was on the staff of head coach Linda Lappe, a former Drake assistant coach. Prior to Colorado, Baranczyk was an assistant coach for four seasons at Marquette after two seasons as an assistant coach at Kansas State. Baranczyk graduated from Iowa in 2004 with her bachelor’s degree in communication studies and from Kansas State with her master’s degree in counseling and student development in 2007.
A standout student-athlete on the floor and in the classroom for the University of Iowa, she played in three NCAA tournaments and one WNIT and helped the Hawkeyes win the 2001 Big Ten Tournament. A three-time team captain, Baranczyk (Lillis), was a four-year letterwinner at forward from 2000-04 under Bluder. One of the best all-around players in Hawkeye basketball history, she was a three-time All-Big Ten Conference selection, earning first-team honors as a junior in 2003 and second-team honors as a sophomore in 2002 and as a senior in 2004. She was an honorable mention All-American in 2003. She graduated as the only player in Iowa history in the top 10 of five major statistical categories: points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks, and was one of only two Hawkeye players to score more than 1,700 points and grab 800 rebounds.
She was the recipient of the 2004 Big Ten Conference's Medal of Honor. First awarded in 1914, the Big Ten's oldest award is given annually to a student-athlete in the graduating class of each university that demonstrated proficiency in scholarship and athletics. Baranczyk was also a three-time Academic All-Big Ten pick, a WBCA Scholarship Award recipient, CoSIDA Academic All-District honoree, and a Collegiate Basketball Award for Excellence semifinalist as a senior in 2004.
Jennie and her husband, Scott, have one son, Eli, and two daughters, Jordi and Hope.
