PHOENIX – On Wednesday, the Atlanta Tipoff Club announced that Vanderbilt women’s basketball head coach Shea Ralph has been named the 2026 Werner Ladder Naismith Women’s College Coach of the Year.
Ralph becomes the first Vanderbilt head coach to win the Werner Ladder Naismith Women’s College Coach of the Year award. She is the second Commodore coach to win a national coach of the year honor, as Jim Foster was named the United States Basketball Writers Association National Coach of the Year in 1992-93.
“I am honored and grateful to be recognized as the 2026 Werner Ladder Naismith Women’s College Coach of the Year,” expressed Ralph. “This award is so much bigger than me. Great players make great coaches, and I am incredibly blessed to get to coach great players on my team. My staff is my family, and their belief in me and in our program has helped us to one of the best seasons in school history. I am fortunate that our chancellor, Daniel Diermeier, and our athletic director, Dr. Candice Storey Lee, share my vision for Vanderbilt women’s basketball. This award is for everyone who has helped our program set a new standard for excellence this season.”
The Naismith Women’s College Coach of the Year is the fifth national coach of the year honor that Ralph has earned during the 2025-26 campaign. The fifth-year head coach has earned the distinction from the USBWA, ESPN, The Athletic and The Sporting News.
In her fifth season at the helm in the Music City, Ralph took a Vanderbilt team that returned just one starter from a season ago and led the Commodores to their most successful regular season in school history. She guided Vandy to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 17 seasons. Vanderbilt posted a 29-5 overall record in 2025-26, while the Dores went 13-3 in SEC games.
Vandy’s 29 wins are the third-most in program history, while the 13 SEC victories set the school record for the most conference victories in a season. The Dores earned a No. 2 seed in the 2026 NCAA Tournament and hosted March Madness games in Memorial Gymnasium for the first time since the 2011-12 campaign. The Dores concluded the SEC regular season tied for second place, matching the best conference finish in program history.
Ralph led Vanderbilt to a top-five ranking in both the AP top 25 and the USA Today/WBCA coaches poll for the first time since the 2001-02 season. The Commodores spent five weeks inside the top five, while Vanderbilt was ranked in the top 10 in both polls for 12 consecutive weeks.
Ralph developed the nation’s best backcourt this season. Sophomore guard Mikayla Blakes was named the 2025-26 SEC Player of the Year, while she has been named a first-team All-American by numerous publications, and first-year point guard Aubrey Galvan was selected as SEC Freshman of the Year.
Vanderbilt went a perfect 18-0 at Memorial Gymnasium in 2025-26, marking the first time in program history that the Commodores went undefeated at home in a season. The Commodores opened the 2025-26 campaign by winning a school-record 20-straight games. Vanderbilt posted seven wins against ranked foes this season, the most in a regular season since 1995-96.
The Anchored for Her Campaign
Vanderbilt launched the Anchored for Her campaign to honor its pioneering female student-athletes and cement the university’s place as the premier destination for women’s sports ahead of next year’s 50th anniversary of its varsity women’s teams. Bolstered by lead gifts from Vanderbilt Board of Trust members Nina Kohler and Kathleen Justice-Moore, JD’91, Anchored for Her’s initial $50 million goal will fuel investment in sustainable success for a new era of collegiate athletics through facility enhancements, endowed scholarships, coaching and staff positions, capital support and naming opportunities, team-specific Excellence Funds, the Women’s Athletics General Fund and the Competitive Excellence Fund.
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