Black Hills State University Athletics

Kruger is entering his first season as interim head coach of the Yellow Jackets. He was named to the posiiton on August 4th, 2025.

A builder of programs, Kruger arrives in Spearfish for what will be his 35^th season as a collegiate head coach where he has amassed more than 500 career wins and has taken a pair of NCAA Division II programs to national tournaments and Sweet 16 appearances. In his previous 34 seasons of coaching, he tallied a career record of 531-446 with stops at Northwestern College (1981-87), Southwest Minnesota State University (1991-05), Adams State University (2006-13), Ashford University (2013-16), and Iowa Central Community College (2016-20). Since his most recent coaching stop, he has spent the last five years running Basketball Docs, a program in which he provided skill training sessions as well as consulting and mentoring for college and high school basketball programs. Additionally, he coached Sanford Sports teams based out of Sioux Falls on the AAU circuit.
 
During his tenure in Fort Dodge, Iowa, from 2016-20, Kruger's Iowa Central squads produced three consecutive winning seasons. In both 2018 and 2019, the Tritons advanced to the NJCAA Region XI Semifinals. While at ICCC he coached seven players to All-Region XI honors, while Brittany West also earned NJCAA Second Team All-America recognition.
 
From 2013-16, Kruger led Ashford University (Iowa) through their final three years of existence, resulting in a 46-50 record and the school's only two NAIA Division II Women's Basketball Tournament appearances in program history. The 2013-14 season saw the Saints use the nation's second-best rebounding defense (32.4 RPG) and ninth-best scoring defense (59.6 PPG) to win their first of two consecutive Association of Independent Institutions (A.I.I.) championships to punch their national tournament bid, before falling to eventual national champion Saint Francis (Ind.). A year later in 2014-15 AU posted a school record 25 wins en route to another A.I.I. title and their first-ever national tournament win as they upset No. 6 nationally-ranked Indiana Wesleyan to reach the Sweet 16. Kruger received A.I.I. Coach of the Year honors in 2015 and mentored seven All-A.I.I. players, including sophomore standout Sarah Vozel who received NAIA Honorable Mention All-American recognition in 2015 as well.
 
Kruger is also no stranger to the RMAC, having guided Adams State to a pair of its most successful seasons since the program's early years. He remains to this day the all-time winningest coach in Grizzly history, leading the team to a record of 96-101 from 2006-13. He took over a team that won just four contests the year prior and improved the win column total five consecutive years, culminating with 23 wins in 2010-11 to tie the mark for the second-most wins in program history. The year prior in 2009-10, the team's 21 wins was the most since the 1982-83 season. In both 2010 and 2011, Adams State reached the NCAA Division II Women's Basketball Tournament, the program's first-ever postseason appearances, which included a trip to the Sweet 16 in 2011 after upsets of No. 5 nationally-ranked Fort Lewis and Northern State. Kruger coached a total of ten All-RMAC players during his time in Alamosa, including 2-time All-American and ASU all-time leading scorer, Vera Jo Bustos.
 
Prior to making the move west to the Rockies, Kruger spent 14 seasons from 1991-05 at Southwest Minnesota State University, leaving and still remaining second on the all-time wins list with a record of 234-164. The 2022 SMSU Hall of Fame inductee guided the Mustangs to ten winning seasons and their first four 20-win seasons all-time. Southwest claimed outright NSIC regular season titles in 2000-01 and 2001-02, along with adding an NSIC Tournament crown in 2002. The years 2001 and 2002 also showcased the school's first-ever appearances in the NCAA Division II Women's Basketball Tournament, including a march to the Sweet 16 in 2002 as the Mustangs upset Nebraska-Kearney and North Dakota. From 1999-03 Kruger's SMSU teams went 90-32 (57-15 NSIC), signifying the most successful 4-year stretch in program history. He was recognized as the NSIC Coach of the Year on three occasions during his time in Marshall, earning the honor in 1993-94, 1999-00, and 2000-01. Kruger saw 28 players earn All-NSIC honors, which included his mentorship of NSIC Player of Year recipients Andrea Schreier (2000-01) and Michelle Bruns (2004-05). Following in the footsteps of Lille Brown in 1996, Schreier and Bruns in 2001 and 2005 respectively accounted for the trio of All-Americans during Kruger's Southwest Minnesota State tenure.
 
Kruger's coaching career began as he helped build the foundation for NAIA power Northwestern College (Iowa) from 1981-87. He remains third all-time in wins in Red Raider history, posting a 91-71 mark for five winning seasons in six years. His NWC teams twice finished second in the Io-Kota Conference standings and three times qualified for the NAIA District 15 Tournament.
 
A native of Little Rock, Iowa, Kruger graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1981 with a bachelor's degree in physical education and again in 1986 with a master's degree in education. Kelly and his wife Patti are the parents of three children, son Carter and his wife Jenni with grandson Lincoln of El Dorado, Kansas, daughter Kelsie Brugmann and husband Jared of Bennington, Nebraska, and daughter Katlyn of Rock Valley, Iowa.

HEAD COACHING RECORD