PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Shea Ralph of Vanderbilt was named The Associated Press women’s basketball Coach of the Year on Thursday after turning the Commodores into one of the top teams in the nation.<\/p>\n
Ralph led a team that returned just one starter to the most successful season in school history. The team went 29-5, with 13 of those wins coming in the regular season against a rugged Southeastern Conference schedule. The Commodores finished tied for second in the conference, which matched the best finish in program history. They earned a 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament and reached the Sweet 16.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s wild. It\u2019s hard to wrap my mind around it. This whole year we haven\u2019t slowed down,\u201d Ralph told the AP. \u201cI love basketball, I love the group that I coach.I love they stayed with me. It\u2019s been hard and it\u2019s been challenging, but in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ralph received 23 votes from the 31-member national media panel that votes on the AP Top 25 each week. UCLA\u2019s Cori Close, who was the AP Coach of the Year last season, was next with four. Ralph\u2019s mentor at UConn, Geno Auriemma, received two votes while Mark Kellogg of West Virginia and Kara Lawson of Duke each received one.<\/p>\n
\u201dThe thing I love the most of where I’m at is the vision never changed,” Ralph said. \u201cThat’s really important to me. Do it at a high level at Vanderbilt is really improtant to me. They’ve shown what that looks like to invest in women. Really invest in women. The resources and money, but also the development and academics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ralph is the first Vanderbilt coach to win the award, which was launched in 1994-95. Her team, which won seven more games than the year before and was ranked as high as No. 5 in the AP poll, was led by All-America guard Mikayla Blakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s someone you would want to run through a brick wall for,\u201d Blakes said. \u201cShe has bought so much into us that it\u2019s only right that we continue to fight in this game for her, and she\u2019s someone who in tough moments you want to lean on. And that\u2019s the reason why I came here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vanderbilt started out 20-0 and had seven wins over ranked teams this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think truly we never talked about it,\u201d Ralph said of the undefeated start. \u201cI chuckled to some of my staff members this is what I\u2019m used to. I feel comfortable here. Keep kicking their butts in practice and challenging them and keep preparing the same way no matter what our record is.\u201d<\/p>\n
AP Sports Writer Teresa M. Walker contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Shea Ralph of Vanderbilt was named The Associated Press women’s basketball Coach of the Year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[87522,7,26754,25913,36045,27963,29499,29496,29494,87342,29498,62648,87523],"class_list":{"0":"post-694704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-ap-coach-of-year-shea-ralph","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-cori-close","11":"tag-kara-lawson","12":"tag-mark-kellogg","13":"tag-mikayla-blakes","14":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","15":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","16":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","17":"tag-product-32555-ap-online-college-sports-news","18":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","19":"tag-product-40814-ap-tennessee-sports-only","20":"tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116337338562860967","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}