Vanderbilt’s Shea Ralph earns The Athletic’s women’s basketball Coach of the Year

Five years in the past, Shea Ralph took over a Vanderbilt program that hadn’t been to the postseason in nearly a decade.

In the SEC and school basketball, the Commodores weren’t even an afterthought. Now, wanting again at what she has performed in the previous 5 years, it makes you marvel: Was Vanderbilt a sleeping large that wanted to search out the proper coach? Ralph was the excellent option to resurrect this Vanderbilt women’s basketball program.

That was apparent to our four-person panel (Chantel Jennings, Sabreena Merchant, Zena Keita and Eden Laase), who unanimously voted to elect Ralph as The Athletic’s women’s basketball Coach of the Year.

Ralph led the Commodores to the higher echelon of women’s hoops this season, going 27-3 total and 13-3 in convention play throughout the common season, setting a college document for the most convention wins. Despite being chosen to complete fifth in the SEC, the Commodores completed second.

They returned just one starter (granted, that one starter was standout Mikayla Blakes), however Ralph introduced in 4 new starters, together with a real freshman level guard, and challenged the SEC’s pecking order, the most top-heavy league in the nation. Additionally, the Commodores took down seven ranked groups this season, together with three top-10 groups (Texas, LSU and Michigan).

Ralph’s success 5 years into her tenure reveals that she has performed this with gamers she recruited and a program she has overhauled. Add the unstable world of NIL and the switch portal into this dialog, and Ralph’s turnaround of Vanderbilt is that rather more spectacular.