Shea Ralph of Vanderbilt women’s basketball was named SEC Coach of the Year, the conference announced March 3.
Ralph joins two of her players winning awards as Mikayla Blakes was named SEC Player of the Year and Aubrey Galvan as SEC Freshman of the Year.
It was only the sixth time that an SEC school has won Coach, Player and Freshman of the Year awards in the same season and the first time in Commodores history.
Ralph is the first coach in program history to receive this honor. Former coach Jim Foster was named 1993 USBWA National Coach of the Year.
Ralph was honored after leading Vanderbilt (27-3) to its most regular-season wins and SEC wins (13) in program history. The Commodores finished tied for second in the SEC regular-season standings and are a projected No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. Among the wins Vanderbilt has collected this season are against LSU, Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
In her fifth season, Ralph got her 100th career win as a head coach as No. 5 Vanderbilt defeated the Lady Vols to end the regular season. She joined the Commodores in 2021 after 13 years as an assistant at UConn, where she also played.
Under Ralph, Vanderbilt qualified for its first NCAA tournament in a decade in 2024 and also made it in 2025.
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at [email protected] or on X @aria_gerson.
