Blueprint for a Backcourt

A person’s influence on a basketball court can be measured in any number of ways. Many manifest in the box score, as was the case in March, when Jordyn Cambridge recorded the first triple-double in Vanderbilt women’s basketball postseason history.

The memorable effort propelled the Commodores past Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament and helped kickstart a postseason that stretched deep into the WNIT. The columns of numbers told their own story about an array of skills at Cambridge’s disposal. That portfolio is one reason the Commodores will profoundly miss her on-court presence this season, after a season-ending injury once again forced Cambridge to display the courage and perspective too often and too cruelly tested in young athletic career.

One reason, but not the biggest reason. Numbers can’t convey everything that Cambridge means to a program. They don’t reveal much about her experience, resilience and leadership, the strengths that knit a collection of people together—that make them understand why they want to wear this particular uniform in the first place.

You won’t see Cambridge’s name in the box score this season. You won’t see the points, assists and rebounds next to her name. But she was always more valuable than numbers. Her influence always extended beyond them. It still does, in the way she continues to shape this season through the presence of two people who might not be here if not for her.

Little more than a month after her triple-double, Cambridge played her part in engineering a different double, one that will go a long way toward shaping the season ahead. In the span of a spring week, the fifth-year guard welcomed Ciaja Harbison and Marnelle Garraud to campus for the sort of recruiting visits that are reshaping collegiate athletics in the age of the transfer portal.

Harbison and Garraud weren’t wide-eyed high schoolers. Already accomplished student-athletes at Saint Louis University and Boston College, respectively, they were graduate transfers looking for the best place to complete a final season of eligibility, begin graduate studies and prepare for life beyond university. Vanderbilt offered an opportunity to pursue a world-class education in one of the most vibrant cities in the country, while simultaneously competing in arguably the most competitive and historically significant conference in women’s basketball.

That’s a good start.

What Cambridge conveyed to Harbison, a message she reiterated when Garraud visited, was that the women’s basketball team aspired to excellence. The newcomers would find a reenergized program and people who challenged and supported them as they grew.

“I tried to be as honest as possible because no one likes to be lied to,” Cambridge recalled. “I explained that I’ve had an incredible experience with our new coaches, especially given they were new to me last year. I told her, ‘I don’t know what your situation was before or anything, but when you come here, they care about you.’”

She paused, as a grin crossed her face.

“So, I like to take credit for Ciaja coming here,” she added. “And Nelly actually came the next day, so I’m going to take credit for her too.”

In Cambridge’s absence, Harbison and Garraud will help define a backcourt that still seeks to build on Vanderbilt’s burgeoning defensive reputation under second-year head coach Shea Ralph. With 10 collegiate seasons between them, but entering their first season together, the duo is also a blueprint for a new era. Ralph wants Vanderbilt to be the right place to take the next step, whether for a high school standout, an aspiring “Double ’Dore” or an accomplished newcomer whose journey followed a more indirect path to Memorial Gymnasium.

Assembling the Backcourt

A season ago, Garraud started every game for Boston College and led the team in steals and assists. In the course of four seasons in Boston, the 5-foot-7 guard from Lynn, Massachusetts, started more than 100 games, led the ACC in steals during the 2020–21 season and earned ACC All-Defensive team honors. She also never played for the coaches who recruited her, the result of a change in staffs before her freshman year. After graduating a semester early, the four-time ACC All-Academic team honoree decided to seize the opportunity to start anew.

“I knew I wanted to have a strong relationship with my head coach, primarily, and my coaching staff,” Garraud said.

She didn’t know Ralph, but she was familiar with someone who could vouch for Vanderbilt’s head coach. Vanderbilt associate head coach Tom Garrick, Ralph’s husband, was part of the Boston College staff that recruited her in high school (as was current Vanderbilt Director of Operations Chris Brann).

After entering her name in the transfer portal, complete with the momentary flash of panic at the thought that no one would reach out to her, Garraud reconnected with Garrick. He encouraged her to consider Vanderbilt, where she could pursue a master’s in marketing at Owen Graduate School of Management while contemplating a career path that may include law school.

She liked that Ralph didn’t just ask questions about what she was looking for, but drilled down about why those things mattered to her. Watching Ralph seamlessly switch between coach and mom when daughter Maysen is around put her at ease. But Cambridge was the clincher—the proof that the vibe wasn’t all a put-on that would vanish the moment she committed or if adversity hit.

“She was very accepting and open,” Garraud recalled. “I’m coming in as a fifth-year senior and someone in her position is doing that? Before I even committed, that made me feel like this team would accept me. This team would welcome me as family. And that was just on my visit.”

Harbison followed a similar path. The second all-time leading scorer in St. Louis history, capped by a career-best 17.5 points per game as a senior, she was a four-time All-Atlantic 10 selection and the conference’s former rookie of the year. After graduating with a degree in public health, she sought new challenges on the court and new opportunities off it.

She looked at the list of student-athletes Ralph mentored at Connecticut who went on to play professionally, spoke with the coaches about skill development and envisioned testing herself against the best of the best in the SEC. In the Medicine, Health and Society master’s program, she also saw an opportunity to answer a calling to reduce health disparities in underprivileged and vulnerable communities—a passion that crystallized during her undergraduate studies.

And like Garraud, any sense that it might all be too good to be true evaporated when she was alone with Cambridge and other student-athletes.

“They gave off great vibes,” Harbison said. “They were very genuine, friendly and gave off this family vibe that I find important. Being away from home, I’m very family-oriented. Coming here and being welcomed like that was nice for me.”

Making Each Other Better

Garraud and Harbison form the core of as experienced and decorated a backcourt, as many games played as just about any duo in the SEC. Their next game will also be their first together and first with the rest of their new teammates.

Maximizing the potential of the former and minimizing the awkwardness of the latter is already a work in progress, commenced not just during workouts in Memorial Gymnasium but during quiet summer afternoons and evenings.

“We’ve had hang-out sessions,” Harbison said of a roster that also includes well-regarded freshmen Ryanne Allen, Jada Brown and Amauri Williams. “We came here to my apartment and we just talked about a lot of things that we may not know about each other. They got to know more about me. So things like that I think are very important to build chemistry. Just getting to know each of my teammates better off the court, too, which feeds on the court.”

Again, Cambridge still has a role to play, in this case as Garraud’s roommate.

“With both of them, it’s just about building relationships,” Cambridge said.

Establishing a collective identity was a cornerstone of Ralph’s first season and instrumental in the eventual postseason success. The Commodores ranked fifth among SEC teams in scoring defense and 3-point defense. They led the league in steals by an enormous margin, a measure of the individual brilliance of someone like Cambridge, who led the league with nearly four steals per game, but also a collective ability to apply organized pressure and provide cover.

“If anyone watches us, they know that’s what we pride ourselves on,” Cambridge said earlier this fall of a mentality that the team will try to maintain without her. “We play that way for 40 minutes. We get tired. So it’s good to have everyone on the team have that same mindset and want to be a good defender, want to get out and go fast, want to get steals and easy scores.”

In Garraud, she sees a kindred spirit in that regard. Garraud and Harbison are capable of playing lockdown defense, as their previous accolades attest. But where Harbison’s prolific scoring and knack for memorable shots sometimes overshadowed her excellence at the other end of the court, Garraud eagerly embraces an identity rooted in making life miserable for opponents.

“I’m a defensive-minded person, so I think defense is where you can really build chemistry,” Garraud said. “You rely on talking, and you don’t always see them—but you hear them. Trust is built on defense.”

Their Vanderbilt Moment

Harbison expected her master’s classes at Vanderbilt to challenge her, but she was still caught off guard by one particularly vexing question an instructor posed during the summer: What was her favorite restaurant in Nashville?

Between settling in on the court and in the classroom, she realized she hadn’t sampled the full culinary offerings beyond the chains familiar to both Nashville and Louisville, her hometown. But she’s working on it. Garraud, too, has a bucket list of Nashville experiences that she hopes to work through in whatever slivers of time she finds between basketball and school.

Each wants to make the most of whatever time they have at Vanderbilt. As Cambridge will attest, even lengthier stays pass quickly. But brought together for a year, the three guards can together make an indelible mark on each other and the program.

At Vanderbilt, each found the right place to take the next step in a lifelong journey.

As a result, the Commodores may be ready to take the next step this season.

That won’t be easy without everything Cambridge brought to a basketball court and all the ways she was able to influence games. But it will be possible because she continues to bring much more than that to the Vanderbilt program.

Up to and including bringing aboard two of the newest Commodores.

“The final thing I was looking for was being within a championship environment and having a chance to compete with the team in the NCAA Tournament,” Harbison said. “Obviously, that’s every team’s dream, but I really felt like I would get a good opportunity at reaching the postseason here.”