University of Northern Iowa Athletics
Women's Basketball
- Title:
- Director of Basketball Operations
- Email:
- nicole.mcdermott@uni.edu
- Phone:
- (319) 273-7017
Nicole McDermott joined the Panthers as the Director of Basketball Operations ahead of the 2025-26 season. In this role, McDermott will be responsible for all aspects of team travel, facility scheduling, team academics, volunteer work, and special events, and will be in charge of student managers and the Playmakers Club.
McDermott comes to UNI from Quincy University where she obtained her Master's degree while playing for the Quincy Hawks basketball team and working at The KC Range. McDermott was the Front Desk Operations Manager at The KC Range where she oversaw training and scheduling as well as managing the hiring and onboarding process. She also planned and executed events and developed innovative member management strategies. For the Quincy Hawks, McDermott led the team in scoring, averaging over 15 points a game and scoring 507 points through the Hawks' conference tournament run. Combined with her statistics from Clarke, McDermott surpassed 2,000 points in her career. She was stellar from the line, leading the Great Lakes Valley Conference with 153 free throws, nearly 15 more than the next GLVC athlete. She brought in the second highest number of rebounds for Quincy and surpassed 1,000 career rebounds early on in the Hawks season. McDermott added her D2CCA Second Team All-Midwest Region accolade to an All-Conference First Team honor, an All-Tournament Team honor, and a GLVC Tournament MVP award.
The Cascade, Iowa native graduated with Bachelor's degrees in Business Administration and Sports Management from Clarke University in 2024 and with a Master's degree in operations management from Quincy University in 2025. While at Clarke, McDermott was a three-year starter for the Pride starting all 104 games that she played in. McDermott finished her final season with the Pride with 505 points, the fifth-most in a season in program history. She was fourth-best in her shooting percentage (56.2) her senior year and scored 20 or more points in eight games. She sits in the top-ten of 14 different career stat rankings with Clarke. McDermott won the 2023 NAIA National Championship and was listed as an NAIA Second Team All-American. She holds two NAIA All-American Honorable Mentions, a WBCA All-America honor, an NAIA All-Tournament Team honor, the NAIA Tournament Hustle Award, Heart of America Conference Player of the Year, three Heart of America First Team All-Conference honors, a Heart of America Second Team All-Conference Honor and a Heart of America All-Defensive Team Honor. In her lone season as a graduate transfer at Quincy University, McDermott led the team in minutes (32.2 per game, 1064 total), points (16.0 per game, 529 total), steals (1.4 per game, 46 total), offensive rebounds (87), field goals made (170), free throws made (156), and three-point percentage (.398). McDermott led the Hawks in scoring 23 different times in the season.
In high school, McDermott broke the record for career steals, shooting percentage in a season, and free throw percentage in a season and career. She was also a 2A State Champion in Iowa.
