From the sidelines
Marty Gordon
Virginia Tech has begun a national search for a new women’s basketball coach, and a couple of names are being circulated in the New River with one being very familiar.
Brittany Anderson is both a Blacksburg and Virginia Tech alum, who joined Illinois last year after three seasons on the Stanford University staff.
While she does not have the head coaching experience, Hokie fans would hope for, she is an excellent candidate.
Stanford went 92-12 (.885) in Anderson’s three seasons on The Farm, boasting the second-most wins and third-best winning percentage of any school in the nation during that span. The Cardinal won three straight Pac-12 regular season titles along with the 2021 and 2022 tournament championships and went 50-5 vs. Pac-12 foes in the regular season with Anderson on the staff. Under her guidance, Haley Jones (2022) and Kiana Williams (2021) earned All-America accolades, while Anna Wilson was named the 2021 Pac-12 Co-Defensive Player of the Year. Jones and Lexie Hull were both picked No. 6 in the WNBA Draft in 2023 and 2022, respectively.
A 2007 graduate of Virginia Tech, Anderson has spent time coaching in both the high school and AAU ranks, as well as collegiately at Radford and her alma mater in Blacksburg, Va.
She joined the college ranks in 2013, serving as an assistant at Radford and aiding in the resurgence of its program, including a trip to the WNIT in 2015. Upon returning to her alma mater, Anderson helped Virginia Tech to four straight postseason appearances, highlighted by a run to the WNIT Championship game in 2018.
Playing for the Hokies from 2003-07, Anderson led Virginia Tech to four straight postseason appearances, including three trips to the NCAA Tournament and one to the WNIT. She shot 44.6 percent from the floor for her career and averaged 10.2 points per game as a senior.
Upon graduating with a bachelor’s degree in apparel design and merchandise management, Anderson served as the corporate recruiter for M.C. Dean, Inc. in Dulles, Va., from 2008-13. During that time frame, Anderson also coached girls’ basketball at Potomac Falls High School in Potomac Falls, Va., and in the AAU ranks.
Looking through the current NCAA women’s basketball brackets, several other coaches are rising to the top of the bowl of cereal.
Holy Cross was 21-7, before losing to Iowa in the first round of the Big Dance. Maureen Magarity just finished her fourth season as the head women’s basketball coach at the College of the Holy Cross in 2023-24.
Magarity is the seventh coach in program history and arrived on Mount St. James after spending 10 years as head coach at the University of New Hampshire. While at Holy Cross, Magarity has coached the Crusaders to a 72-41 (.637) record and a 45-23 (.662) mark in Patriot League play through four campaigns.
In just four seasons, Magarity has restored the storied tradition of the Holy Cross women’s basketball program. She has guided the Crusaders to back-to-back Patriot League Tournament Championships (2023, 2024) and appearances in the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament (2023, 2024) including a First Four 72-45 victory against UT Martin in 2024. Holy Cross also has recorded three consecutive 20 win seasons under Magarity’s tenure while in 2022-23, the Crusaders recorded the second most wins (24) in a single season in program history and in 2023-24, the Crusaders set the program record for wins at home in the Hart Center Arena (15).
UT-Martin finished second in their conference this year and received a Big Dance invite. Kevin McMillan is in his 15th year at the helm of the Skyhawk program as the school’s all-time wins leader with 281 career victories.
Overall, the Skyhawks have won 10 Ohio Valley Conference titles during his 15 seasons at UT Martin – including six regular season titles and four tournament crowns. The Skyhawks reached the postseason in six consecutive seasons and 10 campaigns overall while reaching the NCAA Tournament in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2024 along with earning a bid to the Women’s NIT in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2020 (canceled) and 2021. Additionally, the program has recorded eight 20-win seasons in the past 13 years with the Skyhawks posting a 281-193 record under McMillan, including a 189-70 mark in conference play. His 281 victories rank as the third-highest win total in OVC history, as he accounts for four OVC Coach of the Year awards.
West Virginia also took their lumps against Iowa in the current tourney but showed a lot of promise. Mark Kellogg is the sixth winningest active Division I women’s basketball coach in the country by winning percentage and brings a 445-120 (.788) career record to Morgantown. He has spent the last eight seasons (2015-23) at Stephen F. Austin where he compiled a 195-55 (.780) mark with seven consecutive seasons of 23 wins or more.
Kellogg’s list of accomplishments at Stephen F. Austin is endless. He led the Ladyjacks to six straight postseason appearances, two regular season conference championships and two tournament championships along with Southland and then WAC Conference Coach of the Year honors. In the past six years, Stephen F. Austin has been the second winningest women’s basketball program in the state of Texas, and Kellogg has guided SFA to its highest NET and RPI rankings in school history.
In the last five postseasons not affected by COVID, the Ladyjacks appeared in two NCAA tournaments and three WNITs. At SFA, his Southland and WAC conference mark was 120-22 (.845) and his overall career conference mark stands at 274-57 (.828) in 18 previous seasons as a head coach.
Prior to Stephen F. Austin, Kellogg spent two seasons at West Texas A&M where he compiled a 62-6 record and led the Lady Buffs to a Division II runner-up finish in 2014 and an Elite Eight appearance in 2015. His teams won the regular season and tournament championship of the Lone Star Conference in both seasons, and finished No. 2 and No. 6 in the final WBCA national rankings.
Indiana is into the Sweet 16 and was slated to play unbeaten South Carolina and is 26-5 on the season. Teri Marie Moren is the team’s current head and was the head coach at Indianapolis from 2000–2007 and at Indiana State from 2010–2014. She became the head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers women’s basketball team in 2014.
Moren’s teams have acquired many championships and accolades. Her Hoosiers won the 2018 Women’s National Invitation Tournament and in 2023 she became the winningest coach in program history. As an assistant coach, Moren won a gold medal at the 2022 FIBA Under-18 Women’s Americas Championship. She was named the 2023 AP College Basketball Coach of the year and has twice been the Big Ten’s Women’s Basketball Coach of the Year.
10-seeded University of Richmond women’s basketball team ended its historic 2023-24 campaign at the hands of No. 7 Duke in the NCAA Tournament First Round, ending the year at 29-6. Aaron Roussell just finished his fifth season at Richmond and has 19 years of head coaching experience to match a career winning percentage of .686 with an overall record of 377-173.
In 2022-23, Roussell led the Spiders to a record-breaking season, including a record-breaking victory over Longwood on Dec. 11, 2022, where the Spiders saw a 119-55 score line. The 119-point output marked a new women’s basketball program record of points scored at the Robins Center, eclipsing the 115-point total against American, scored on Jan. 28, 2000.
Roussell had seven highly successful seasons at Bucknell, including a 102-30 (.773) mark over the final four years. He led Bucknell to six-straight winning seasons and four-straight years of 22 wins or more. The Bison’s 102 wins from 2015-19 are the most in a four-year span in the history of the Patriot League and they also posted a 64-8 (.889) league record in that period.
During that time, Bucknell advanced to the postseason four-straight years with a pair of NCAA Tournament and WNIT appearances. Roussell guided Bucknell to a program-record 12-game winning streak in 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and a program-record 29-game home winning streak. His Bison teams posted a 84-20 (.807) record on their home court during his seven-year tenure as head coach.
Roussell logged the most victories and highest winning percentage of any women’s basketball coach in Chicago’s 48-year history. He guided the Maroons to the only three University Athletic Association outright championships in program history. Two of those came in his last two seasons, both on perfect 14-0 league records. Roussell’s Chicago teams made four NCAA Division III Tournament appearances and advanced to three Sweet Sixteen appearances and one Elite Eight showing.
Lindsay Edmonds led Rice to another NCAA tournament and is one of the leaders out of the barn for the job in Blacksburg.
In just her second season as head coach, the 2022-23 Owls had a historic season finishing with a 23-9 (13-7 C-USA) record. Rice had the best start in program history at 9-0 featuring back-to-back wins over Power 5 opponents at Texas A&M and against TCU. The Owls also earned their first postseason appearance and win under Edmonds in the 2023 WNIT against BYU.
In total, Rice defeated four current/future Power 5 schools on the season (Texas A&M, TCU, Houston, BYU).
She served as an assistant coach at N.C. State from 2013-18, adding Recruiting Coordinator duties in 2018, before being elevated to associate head coach prior to the start of the 2019-20 campaign.
Prior to her move to NC State, Edmonds was an assistant coach at James Madison University from 2009-13. In her four seasons with the Dukes (as an assistant to some coach named Kenny Brooks), the team won two Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) championships, played in two NCAA Tournaments and made two WNIT appearances., and her first collegiate coaching stop came at her alma mater, Appalachian State, from 2007-09.
Edmonds (then Lindsay Smith) was a four-year starter and 1,000 point scorer at Appalachian State. She holds the school record for career three-pointers (177) and was a team co-captain in her final two seasons. She led the Mountaineers in assists during her junior and senior years.
Brooks apparently mentioned her name as he exited the door.
Tech Athletic Director Whit Babcock has done a great job in the past to find the diamond in the rough. One more time.
Staff report