Thomaidis, who is wrapping up her 25th season with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies this week, was named the Fox 40 award recipient Wednesday night at the U Sports Women’s Final 8 basketball championship banquet in Edmonton.
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Lisa Thomaidis is once again coach of the year for U Sports women’s basketball.
Thomaidis, who is wrapping up her 25th season with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies this week, was named the Fox 40 award recipient Wednesday night at the U Sports Women’s Final 8 basketball championship banquet in Edmonton.
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Other nominees included Atlantic University Sport (AUS) coach of the year Scott Munro (Saint Mary’s), Quebec (RESF) coach of the year Guillaume Giroux (Laval) and Ontario University Athletics (OUA) coach of the year Dani Sinclair (Carleton).
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Thomaidis also won the Peter Ennis Award in 2009 and 2011.
The six-time Canada West coach of the year (2004, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2016, 2024) and three-time U Sports coach of the year (2009, 2011, 2024) guided the Huskies to a 19-1 record in the Canada West conference after going undefeated in pre-season.
Saskatchewan, which won three straight in Canada West playoffs, entered this week’s Final 8 tournament as the No. 1 seed for the third time during Thomaidis’s tenure while seeking a third Bronze Baby and national title after wins in 2016 and 2020.
The Huskies were also the No. 1 seed in 2006 and 2020.
Under Thomaidis, Saskatchewan has won eight Canada West titles (2006, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2024), advancing to the U Sports Final 8 a total of 14 times, including 13 of the last 14 seasons.
Thomaidis holds the program record for regular-season wins (300), Canada West playoff wins (52) and U Sports national championship wins (19).
This season, she also achieved success on the international stage while guiding Germany to its first-ever Olympic Games berth less than a year after being named head coach of Germany’s national women’s basketball program.
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Thomaidis will be making her fourth Olympic Games appearance later this summer as Germany’s head coach in Paris, France after previous appearances as an assistant with Team Canada in 2012 and as head coach with Team Canada at the 2016 and 2020 Games.
Thomaidis was an assistant coach for Canada’s national women’s team from 2001-12. In 2011, she led Canada’s women’s basketball entry at the World University Games in China to a sixth-place finish. It was Canada’s best placing since 2001. Thomaidis coached at the World Championships in Czech Republic in 2010 and in Brazil in 2006, two PanAm Games (2007 in Rio de Janiero and 2003 in Santo Domingo), as well as Olympic qualification tournaments (Mexico in 2003, Chile in 2007, Colombia in 2011). She was also the Saskatchewan provincial team coach from 1998-2001 and coach of the Canada Games team in 2001.
In the summer of 2012, Thomaidis was an assistant coach with Canada at the London Olympics where the team made a dramatic run to the quarter-finals before falling to the U.S.A., the eventual gold medallists.
In 2013, Thomaidis was appointed head coach of the Canadian women’s national team. She coached the team to a seventh-place finish at the Rio Olympics in 2016, a Pan Am gold medal (which was the first-ever gold medal in basketball at the PanAms) and FIBA Americas gold medal in 2015, a fifth-place finish at the 2018 FIBA world championships in Turkey in 2014, a seventh-place finish at the 2018 FIBA World Cup and a silver medal at the FIBA Americas Championships in Mexico in 2013. Thomaidis guided Canada to the rank of No. 4 in the world heading into the 2020-21 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
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Thomaidis was inducted into the McMaster University Hall of Fame in October 2006. In 2008-09, she became the first women’s basketball coach at the U of S to be named the CIS coach of the year and won the award again in 2011. She was also named a YWCA Woman of Distinction in 2009 and recipient of the CAAWS Women of Influence Award on two occasions.
Thomaidis played two seasons of professional basketball in Europe in the Greek First Division. She was a student -for five years at McMaster University where she was a three-time OUA all-star and was on the Dean’s honour list for three years. She finished her career with McMaster by winning the OUA Coaches Award of Excellence.
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