A broad variety of mascots.

That is one thing former Belle Lady Tiger basketball player Jessica Keller can now say she has experienced as a player and a coach.

Announced Monday, the University of Nebraska in Lincoln hired Keller as an assistant women’s basketball coach for the Cornhuskers in Lincoln.

“We are thrilled to add Jessica Keller to our Husker women’s basketball staff,” Husker head women’s basketball coach Amy Williams said. “She is an outstanding basketball mind with great teaching skills and she has established herself as a person of high character and integrity.”

Prior to Monday, Keller spent the last five years at Illinois State University (ISU) in Normal as an assistant coach with the Redbirds.

During the 2021-22 season, Keller helped lead ISU to a Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Tournament Title and a bid to the 2022 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.

Before entering the coaching world, Keller played college basketball in western Illinois for the Quincy University (QU) Lady Hawks out of the Great Lakes Valley Conference under head coaches Larry Just and JD Gravina.

Now the head women’s basketball coach at Western Illinois University (WIU) in Macomb, Gravina recalled Keller’s playing days as a Lady Hawk.

“Jess was such a special player,” Gravina said. “There were so many nights she would just will us to victory.”

To this day, Keller still holds several records at QU.

Among those is that she is their all-time leading scorer with 1,823 career points.

“She is a tireless worker that fits perfectly with the culture here at Nebraska,” Williams said. “I am excited to have her pouring into the young women in our program.”

Prior to her five-year stint at ISU, Keller was the head coach for three seasons at Columbia College for the Lady Cougars.

In those three years, Keller strung together a 75-24 overall record which included a 55-17 mark in the American Midwest Conference (AMC).

Coaching the Lady Cougars to a pair of NAIA Tournament appearances, Columbia opened Keller’s second season as head coach with a school-record 19 straight victories helping them achieve the highest ranking in school history at number three in the NAIA Division I Coaches’ Poll.

Along with her time at ISU and Columbia, Keller was also an assistant coach at Minnesota State University in Mankato in addition to being a graduate assistant coach at QU while completing her master’s degree in business administration.