Fresh off a (7-24) in her first season, Troy women’s basketball coach Chanda Rigby and her coaching staff look to continue to improve moving forward.
The Trojans’ season ended with a 65-52 loss to Arkansas Little Rock in the second round of the Sun Belt Tournament on Saturday, March 9 in Hot Springs, Ark.
“We made so much progress throughout the year, we really did,” Assistant Coach Jennifer Graf said. “They matured a lot throughout the year; they worked hard throughout the season even though we won seven games.”
Despite winning just three conference games this season, Rigby’s team remained focused on finding success.
“You would think that would be hard to keep them up and them coming back in practice and keep working hard,” Graf said. “But they came in every day and were eager to learn and wanted to know the scouting report and how we were going to try to beat the next team. You just take that group and realize we did improve and we did mature.”
With the season over, the Trojans’ coaches are focused on recruiting new players and they have signed three so far in the early signing period.
A testament to this fact was that Coach Rigby was not available for interview because she was on the recruiting trail at the JUCO National Tournament.
Coach Graf confirmed that the Trojans have a commitment from another player in the late signing period.
“Hopefully we can sign a few more,” Graf said. “Yeah we are excited about next year but it’s still kind of a question mark, once you finish up that recruiting class, then you can really say ‘OK, here’s my team, here’s what we got, here’s what we are going to be able to do.’”
Looking past the recruiting process the Troy coaching staff is striving to improve the team’s defense compared to last year to better compliment the fast-paced offense.
“I think we need to try to find that happy medium with our team next year,” Graf said.
As for what Coach Rigby has meant to her team, her assistant coach said that her good outlook after games what kept her team working to get better every day.
“She can find a way to put a positive spin on anything,” Graf said. “They knew she wasn’t going to be negative and chew you out.”
While preparing for the new season another thing that Graf and the other coaches want to see is more fan support at future game thanks to the women’s team hopefully winning more games.
“The fans that are at our games, they are the same fans that come every single game and that core group of people are into it,” Graf said. “Obviously there are not a ton of people in the stands right now but we are hoping to change that.”
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