University of Northern Iowa Athletics
Kyle Green was named the 26th head coach ofUNI men's basketball in April 12026, culminating a coaching career that has spanned over 30 years across multiple NCAA divisions, including 16 seasons as an assistant coach at Northern Iowa.
Green returns to Cedar Falls after spending the five years as an assistant coach at Iowa State with five NCAA Tournament appearances, two NCAA Sweet Sixteen berths and an elite defense.
Green spent 16 total seasons as an assistant coach at UNI during three separate stints with the Panthers from 2001-03, 2006-11 and 2012-21 under head coaches Greg McDermott and Ben Jacobson. He spent his last four years in Cedar Falls as associate head coach under Jacobson.
A contributor to more than 300 Panther victories, Green helped Northern Iowa to four Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) tournament championships (2009, 2010, 2015, 2016), three MVC regular season titles (2009, 2010, 2020) and four trips to the NCAA Tournament (2009, 2010, 2015, 2016), including UNI’s historic run to the 2010 Sweet Sixteen with upset wins over UNLV and top-ranked Kansas.
In total, UNI players earned 33 All-MVC honors during Green’s time with the Panthers with three Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year winners, including his son, AJ in 2020. With Green primarily working with Panther post players, UNI recognized four MVC Sixth Man of the Year honorees during his time in Cedar Falls, while helping lead one of the top defensive units in the nation, which in turn resulted in a pair of MVC Defensive Player of the Year award winners.
Green brings four years of head coaching experience to UNI, having led programs at Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 2011-12, Lewis University in Illinois from 2004-06 and Western Colorado University (previously known at Western State College) from 2000-01. He also spent one season as an assistant coach at Marquette under head coach Tom Crean, helping lead the Golden Eagles to the quarterfinal round of the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in 2003-04.
Opened in 2006, the McLeod Center has been the home of UNI men’s basketball for the last 20 seasons. Located and connected to the Panthers’ former home in the UNI-Dome, the McLeod Center can hold up to 6,650 people.
The Panthers have recorded three unbeaten home seasons inside the McLeod Center (2009-10, 2014-15, 2019-20), and notched the program’s first home win over an AP No. 1 team on Nov. 21, 2015 over North Carolina. UNI finished the 2025-26 season with a 231-72 (.763) all-time record inside the McLeod Center.
Brandon Ronan (MS, CSCS) joined the UNI strength and conditioning staff in the spring of 2022 and was named Director of Athletic Performance in September of 2025. During his tenure at UNI, he has been the strength and conditioning coach for the men's basketball program for the past four seasons.
Ronan, a Waukon, Iowa native, comes to Cedar Falls after spending eight years at the University of Montana, where he most recently served as Director of Athletic Performance.
Ronan earned his bachelor’s degree from Loras College in Dubuque in sports science in 2013, where he played four seasons of football for the Duhawks. A key piece of the Loras defense, Ronan was named All-Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference as a senior in 2012, and also earned a conference defensive player of the week honor.
While an undergrad, Ronan earned experience in the field interning for both the Loras and Boise State strength and conditioning programs, helping demonstrate techniques for running and weight lifting for athletes.
Following a summer internship in 2013 with Stanford Sports Performance in Palo Alto, Ronan interned and later became a graduate assistant at the University of Montana while studying to earn a master’s degree in health and human performance.
After graduating from Montana in 2016, he took on full time duties with the Grizzlies as Assistant Director of Athletic Performance, serving as the head strength coach for Montana volleyball, women’s basketball, track and field, and cross county. He also assisted in strength coaching for football, and became an adjunct professor of Health and Human Performance at Montana, teaching basic concepts of strength training and conditioning, before being promoted to Director of Athletic Performance in November 2017.
UNI men's basketball players work closely with Senior Associate Athletic Director for Student Services Stacia Eggers, who has exclusively served as the team's academic advisor since 2009. Under her direction, UNI student-athletes have had a higher grade point average than the general student body every semester since spring 2010.
Since 2012, men's basketball's semester GPA has been over 3.00 in 17 of the previous 22 semesters. The Panthers also boasted a 3.48 semester GPA in the fall of 2025, and a cumulative team GPA of 3.43, the highest of all of UNI's men's teams.
