Mike Geary enters his third season of his second stint at Southeast Missouri State in the 2025-26 season and will be his second season under head coach Briley Palmer.
Geary helped the Redhawks finish with a 6-23 overall record and a 4-16 mark in conference play a season ago. He helped coach Zoe Best who was named the Ohio Valley Conference’s ‘Freshman of the Year’
He returned to the Redhawks ahead of the 2023-24 season for his second stint with the program after being a member of the coaching staff during the 2020-21 season in his inaugural year at Southeast.
Geary has 19 years of head coaching experience with a 76- percent winning percentage under his belt.
Before Rhode Island, Geary spent five years at Saint Louis, starting as an assistant coach in June, 2013 after four seasons as an assistant at the University of Detroit Mercy. He was promoted to associate head coach at SLU in June 2014. He helped lead SLU’s program to two WNIT appearances and one Atlantic-10 regular-season co-championship during his tenure.
While with the Bilikens, Geary had five players named all-conference as well as two player of the year awards. SLU made the WNIT three times.
Detroit Mercy posted a 21-13 record and won the Women’s Basketball Invitational with Geary on staff in 2012-13. That followed a 2011-12 campaign that saw the Titans go 20-14 and earn a WNIT bid. During Geary’s tenure, Detroit Mercy improved its NCAA Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) from 220 to 97. Detriot Mercy also appeared in the WNIT one time, and had four athletes named to the all-conference team.
Geary also spent two seasons as an assistant coach alongside Patterson at Ball State. They helped guide the 2006-07 Cardinals to a 24-7 ledger, the Mid-American Conference West Division title and a WNIT berth. While at Ball State, they had one student athlete named to all-conference team.
He had success as a head coach at the NCAA Division II level, winning 417 games. Geary led Lake Superior State to the 1988 NCAA Tournament round of 16 in his second season, and the Lakers were 47-10 in his two campaigns at the helm. As head coach, Geary led the Lakers to a pair of NCAA appearances and had five all-conference players.
Geary then embarked on a stellar 17-year stint at Northern Michigan, where his teams compiled a 370-123 record and enjoyed 19 winning seasons, including eight in succession with 20 or more victories. As head coach, Geary had eleven NCAA Tournament appeareances. He had 20 all-conference players and six athletes earn player of the year titles.
Geary’s Northern Michigan teams captured seven GLIAC Tournament crowns, including four-straight from 1995 to 1998. The Wildcats played in seven NCAA regional championship games and his players earned five All-America awards to go along with six GLIAC Most Valuable Player accolades.
Geary has three sons, Sean, Tyler and Cruz.
