Melissa Kolbe will enter her third season on the WKU staff in 2017-18 after helping to lead the Lady Toppers to 27 victories and a sweep of the C-USA regular season and tournament championships in her second season on The Hill.
With Kolbe on the bench, WKU earned the 2015 GCI Great Alaska Shootout championship and engineered an upset of No. 16 Louisville in her first season in 2015-16, and the Lady Toppers followed up with a win over then-No. 23 Indiana and a 27-7 mark during the 2016-17 campaign.
Before joining Mount St. Mary's, Kolbe previously spent time at Eastern Kentucky University, serving as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator from 2008-2014. She helped lead the Colonels to back-to-back winning seasons in 2012-13 and 2013-14 before helping the program to their first-ever trip to the Women's Basketball Invitational in 2014.
Prior to joining the staff at EKU, Kolbe worked as an assistant coach at East Carolina University for six seasons from 2002-08. In her first season with East Carolina, the Lady Pirates made the Conference USA Tournament for the first time. The most successful season for the Lady Pirates during the six-year span came in the 2006-07 campaign when ECU won its first Conference-USA tournament championship to earn its second-ever ticket to the NCAA Tournament and first in 25 years.
Kolbe spent the 2001-02 season serving as an assistant coach at Mercer University, helping the Bears to a 16-13 record. In her only season in Macon, Ga., Kolbe aided in Mercer's 10-win improvement from the previous season, which was the biggest turnaround in the NCAA in 2001-02.
Beginning her coaching career at Valdosta State University in 1999, Kolbe spent two seasons at the Division II Institution before making the jump to Division I at Mercer in 2001.
Kolbe, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, graduated from Wittenberg University in 1999 with a degree in psychology. As a player for the Tigers, she helped lead the team to three conference championships and two NCAA Tournament trips. She appeared in 105 games, starting 55, including all 28 as a junior, and 26-of-27 as a senior. She scored 753 career points, averaging a career best 9.5 points per contest as a senior.
She also grabbed 510 rebounds during her time at Wittenberg, including 168 as a junior. She shot 51.1 percent from the field during her career, ranking among the top shooters in program history.
