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Vanderbilt coach Shea Ralph has led the program to new heights. Michael Hickey / Getty Images
Five years ago, Shea Ralph took over a Vanderbilt program that hadn’t been to the postseason in almost a decade.
In the SEC and college basketball, the Commodores weren’t even an afterthought. Now, looking back at what she has done in the past five years, it makes you wonder: Was Vanderbilt a sleeping giant that needed to find the right coach? Ralph was the perfect choice to resurrect this Vanderbilt women’s basketball program.
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That was obvious 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 upper echelon of women’s hoops this season, going 27-3 overall and 13-3 in conference play during the regular season, setting a school record for the most conference wins. Despite being selected to finish fifth in the SEC, the Commodores finished second.
They returned only one starter (granted, that one starter was standout Mikayla Blakes), but Ralph brought in four new starters, including a true freshman point guard, and challenged the SEC’s pecking order, the most top-heavy league in the country. Additionally, the Commodores took down seven ranked teams this season, including three top-10 teams (Texas, LSU and Michigan).
Ralph’s success five years into her tenure shows that she has done this with players she recruited and a program she has overhauled. Add the volatile world of NIL and the transfer portal into this conversation, and Ralph’s turnaround of Vanderbilt is that much more impressive.
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Chantel Jennings is The Athletic’s senior writer for the WNBA and women’s college basketball. She covered college sports for the past decade at ESPN.com and The Athletic and spent the 2019-20 academic year in residence at the University of Michigan’s Knight-Wallace Fellowship for Journalists. Follow Chantel on Twitter @chanteljennings
