Vanderbilt women’s basketball coach Shea Ralph has done a fantastic job in building the program back to relevance, but the abrupt end to the season shows there is still more work to be done. While it was a fun season in many ways – highlighted by a freshman sensation Mikayla Blakes scoring more than 50 points twice and beating Tennessee twice in one season for the first time ever – the one and done showing in the NCAA tournament loss to Oregon felt like the team ultimately fell short of expectations which leaves a sour taste heading into the offseason.
Coach Shea Ralph would say as much in her postgame comments: “I feel like we underachieved, and then I know when I look at my team and I look at where we're going that we haven't, but that's what it feels like when you know that you're capable of playing like we did in that second half for an entire game."
Last year, the Commodores snuck into the NCAA tournament playing in the First Four as a 12 seed. They would defeat Columbia before falling to 5 seed Baylor in the first round. This was considered a huge accomplishment for a program that hadn’t received a NCAA tournament invitation since the 2013-14 season.
While there is no question Ralph has improved the overall talent on the roster, there were still significant personnel flaws that prevented the kind of traction the program was hoping to build upon from last season’s achievements. The overall record went from 23-10 to 22-11 this season. Last year, Vandy finished 9-7 in the SEC for a 6th place finish. This year they finished 8-8, which put them in 8th place. While just making the NCAA tournament first round felt like a success last year, 7 seeded Vandy falling to the 10 seed Oregon felt like a disappointment.
Now Ralph enters the most important offseason of her young head coaching career. She has the best freshman in the country Mikayla Blakes, who appears to be a generational player, coming back. She has another star, Khamil Pierre, returning -- despite false reports and social media drama indicating the contrary -- that thankfully turned out to be a nothing-burger. These two players are good enough to build a championship contender around, and it falls on Ralph to find the right pieces to surround them.
The team’s third leading scorer, Iyanna Moore, has another year of eligibility, but has not indicated her plans for next season. Sacha Washington has announced she will return after sitting out this season with a blood clot. The team will also presumably return Madison Greene and Justine Pissott. Greene is a reliable guard off the bench. And while it’s doubtful Pissott will ever reach her High School All-America billing, she started to come on at the end of the season and looks to be a reliable shooter going forward.
Unlike a year ago, there are no McDonald’s All-American freshman likes Blakes coming in. The recruiting class isn’t highly ranked, for whatever that’s worth, so it’s difficult to project how much they will be able to contribute. Monique Williams, a 6’3” forward from Australia, actually joined ...
