Eastern Connecticut State University

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In 2024/25, Bill Geitner begins his 23rd season as the head men's basketball coach at Eastern Connecticut State University, having coached his 500th game with the Warriors in the second game of the Covid-shortened 2020/21 season.

Geitner's 585 games coached in 22 seasons at Eastern are nearly 250 more than any other previous head coach in the program's 84-year history.
 
As his 16th season unfolded in 2017/18, Geitner moved to the head of the class in terms of length of service by a head coach in program history.

Already having coached and won more games than any of the previous nine coaches prior to the 2017/18 season, Geitner passed the late, legendary Francis E. Geissler in terms of years coached when the Warriors tipped off against Dean College in the opening round of the Ted Coghlin Memorial Tournament at WPI.

On Jan. 7, 2020, Geitner recorded his 300th win as a head men's basketball coach (all at Eastern) with his fifth win of the year --  an 87-83 Little East Conference victory over UMass Dartmouth at Geissler Gymnasium.

Among active New England coaches, he ranks among the Top 20 in winning percentage (59.5) and total victories (348).

In addition to having coached more overall games than any other head coach in program history, Geitner has coached more than 60 percent (310 of 498) of the team's  regular-season games in the 38-year history of the Little East Conference. His regular-season (190) and post-season (18) win totals, and regular-season (7) and tournament (3) titles in Little East play also top the all-time Eastern coaching chart.

On January 24, 2023, Geitner coached his 300th Little East Conference regular-season game and enters the 2024/25 season needing ten victories for 200 in LEC regular-season competition and two LEC tournament triumphs for 20 iin his career. In his career, Geitner has won more LEC tournament games than he has lost.

Among active LEC coaches, Geitner is second in most every career category (overall and conference wins, games coached, and LEC championships, among them) to 42nd-year University of Massachusetts Dartmouth head coach Brian Baptiste, who has coached all of his team's conference contests and is the active NCAA Division III national leader in wins (720), ranking seventh in history among all Division III men's basketball coaches in that category.

In a span of 13 seasons from 2009/10 through 2021/22 under Geitner, Eastern won an average of 19.2 games per season (250-103) with a 70.8 overall winning percentage, posted nine 20-win seasons, seven LEC regular-season titles (one of which was shared) and captured three LEC tournament championships.

In a six-year span through 2018/19, Eastern won six (five outright) straight LEC regular-season titles -- the most since UMass Dartmouth claimed its seventh in a row in 1997/98 -- amassing a phenomenal winning percentage of 87.2 with its 75-11 record in that span. During that stretch, Eastern won 44 straight LEC regular-season home games, with one class of four-year seniors never losing a conference regular-season game at Geissler Gym.

In 2017/18, Geitner was voted LEC Coach-of-the-Year for the sixth time in nine seasons after leading the Warriors to a 13-1 conference regular-season mark -- their fourth season of two or less conference regular-season losses in the last six seasons. That team set a program record with 26 victories and its winning percentage of 86.7 was the highest since 1942/43.

In the LEC regular season over the last 15 years, Eastern is 146-61  (70.5 percent), winning at least ten games in 11 of those seasons in that 15-year span. In the first nine of those 14 years, Eastern averaged 10.4 wins in a 14-game season before winning 13 in the expanded 16-game schedule in 2018/19. In one three-year stretch, the Warriors were 39-3 in LEC regular-season play and posted the only perfect 14-0 season in 2013/14 in the 21 years that the LEC played a 14-game season between 1997/98 and 2017/18.

In 2016/17, the Warriors re-gained the 20-win plateau (21-9) after a brief one-year absence. En route to that plateau, Geitner led the Warriors to their seventh 20-win season in eight years, their fourth straight LEC regular-season title (fifth in six years), second LEC tournament title under his watch, and seventh post-season appearance in eight years. In 2016/17, the Warriors never lost as many as two straight games once the calendar turned to December, cobbled together a nine-game win streak at mid-season, and came from 13 points back to trim Keene State College, 72-70, in the LEC tournament championship game at Geissler Gym.

Geitner took over as the program's winningest coach with his second win of 2014/15, which occured when the Warriors won their own Eastern Tip-Off Tournament title with a 74-53 win over Colby College. Two weeks later, Geitner moved to the head of Eastern's all-time coaching class in games coached, when the Warriors won the University of Rochester Thanksgiving Invitational in the eighth game of the season, the 339th in Geitner's Eastern coaching career.

Until 2009/10, the program had managed only two seasons of at least 20 victories in its history. That year, Geitner guided the Warriors to the first of six straight 20-win campaigns. 

In 2011/12, Geitner performed a feat that had not been done with the men's basketball program in nearly 20 years: he led the Warriors to two NCAA tournament victories and a berth in the NCAA Division III Sweet 16. After winning the program's first Little East Conference tournament title since 2000, Geitner orchestrated a run through the NCAA tournament which included a regional championship with victories over Medaille College and in double overtime, a buzzer-beating triumph over host SUNY Oswego.

In 2012/13, even though the Warriors attained the 20-win plateau for the fourth straight season (22-8) , they were unable to reach that monumental feat of the previous season. Instead, they "settled" for the next best thing by completing an unprecedented run through the ECAC New England Tournament that resulted in the program's first championship in that tournament. Moreover, it was the University's first ECAC title of any sorts in 11 years -- first by a men's program in 39 seasons.

For his then-program-record 24-win season in 2011/12, Geitner was named NABC Northeast Region and LEC Coach-of-the-Year. With Eastern picked for a share of fourth in the LEC pre-season poll, Geitner led the Warriors to their first regular-season conference title in the 26-year history of the championship and a program-record (to that point) 11 wins in 14 conference contests. The program's overall 80.0 winning percentage was the program's highest since 1969/70.

In 2010/11, Geitner directed the club to a second straight 20-win season  and a second straight No. 1 seed in the ECAC tournament. The 21 wins in 2010/11 tied the program season record for wins, but stood up for less than a year.

In 2009/10, Geitner enjoyed a breakthrough season with the program, leading the Warriors to the third 20-win season in program' history and the No.1 seed in the ECAC New England Division III Tournament. 

The Fulton, NY native was named the tenth head coach in Eastern Connecticut State University men’s basketball history in the summer of 2002.

In his first season at Eastern in 2002/03, Geitner inherited only six letterwinners and no seniors, but the Warriors came within a bucket of upsetting third-seeded Keene State College on its home court in the opening round of the LEC tournament. Picked to finish sixth in the conference coaches’ pre-season poll prior to his second season, Eastern shared third place, winning eight of 14 regular-season conference games. On the final day of the regular season last year, Eastern avenged an earlier double-digit loss to Rhode Island College to shock the eventual LEC tournament champion.

Before accepting his current assignment, Geitner had been an assistant at five different institutions, most recently at Division I Loyola College in Maryland.      

While Geitner has coached at all three college levels, he spent nine years as an assistant coach at three Division III institutions after lettering four seasons at Division III Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, from 1983 through 1987.“At heart, I’m a Division III person,” says Geitner, whose Division III coaching resume includes six years (1991-97) at the University of Rochester, NY, two (1989-91) at Hamilton, and one (1988-89) at Hobart College in Geneva, NY. “I played at the Division III level and enjoyed the atmosphere. I can relate to student-athletes at that level, because I’ve gone through what they’re being asked to go through.”

Geitner holds a B.A. in Government from Hamilton and earned his M.S. in Administration from the University of Rochester in 1997.

Geitner and wife Sheri (Harrod) have two children, Annika Christine, 23, and Brian Emil,21, and reside in Tolland.

      EASTERN MEN'S BASKETBALL IN 22 YEARS UNDER HEAD COACH BILL GEITNER