There’s a lot you can’t control in basketball. Like how an errant shot glances off the rim. Or how the refs will award possession late in the fourth quarter when the ball comes in hard and maybe touches Vanderbilt University super-senior Jordyn Cambridge’s fingertips, but maybe doesn’t, before sailing out of bounds.
But you can control practice. Between drills, players pair up and hit free throws. On the court, the Vandy women’s basketball team is loud, communicating about defensive matchups and calling for the ball. Coach Shea Ralph kneels at half-court watching her team run set plays. Everything is black-and-gold besides the sneakers — squeaking flashes of pink, coral and bright green.
Teams sit behind the baseline in Memorial Gym. It’s a small change from a typical court orientation and puts coaches opposite each other, isolated from their bench like fencers down the sideline. This is where Ralph sets up during games, sometimes kneeling, sometimes standing.
Now in her third season at Vanderbilt, Ralph has her sights set on a strong return to the NCAA tournament. The 64-team bracket is a shot at a championship and college basketball’s stamp of legitimacy. From 1986 to 2014, Vanderbilt missed the tournament just twice. Since 2014, the team has struggled to return to national prominence. Along with her staff — which includes her husband Tom Garrick, a former NBA guard — Ralph has combined strong recruiting with a clear, defensive-focused team identity.
“I got a call — we didn’t even really need to have a conversation,” says Ralph, who won one championship as a player and six as an assistant coach at the University of Connecticut, one of the nation’s powerhouse programs. “It took 10 minutes with [athletic director Candice Storey Lee] to let me know that this was the right place.”
At Jan. 9’s afternoon session, the team is 15-1 and undefeated in the SEC. Ralph preaches sleep and schoolwork, telling her athletes to take care of their own business before boarding the bus for Kentucky. Ralph disappears upstairs to talk with a recruit, then meets a small media scrum of mostly student journalists. Joey Dwyer and Alaina Morris, Lipscomb students covering basketball for VandySports.com, say clicks for the women’s team are quickly outpacing their coverage of the VU men’s team, which has just five wins this season as of press time.
Coach Shea Ralph
The next day, Vanderbilt women’s basketball dismantled Kentucky, aided by a dominant 37-point game from junior Iyana Moore. After a close loss to Missouri the following Sunday, the team took down Auburn by 3, highlighted by a double-double from rookie superstar Khamil Pierre. Today, Vanderbilt is sitting fourth in the SEC behind national No. 1 South Carolina, reigning national champions LSU and perennial powerhouse Tennessee, who dealt Vandy their third loss on Sunday. In mid-January, the team briefly cracked the top 25 in a coaches’ poll.
Sixth-year point guard Cambridge, recruited out of Ensworth in 2018, is having a banner year. She’s scoring, especially from 3, and shining with her assists (typically double-digits) and an SEC-leading 4.1 average steals per game. Cambridge plans to retire after this season with her undergraduate degree and two master’s degrees rather than push for the WNBA. Since starting at Vandy she’s been through two coaching staffs, two ACL tears, a torn Achilles and, hopefully, a winning final season.
“As a team, of course, I want to do things that we haven’t done before,” says Cambridge. “All the individual stuff, like the steals record that I’m coming up on, that’s exciting too, but I don’t really focus too much on that. The big thing is making it to the tournament. Then making a run in the tournament. That’s something that I’ve been waiting for since I signed up to come to Vanderbilt.”
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You can spot Moore in pink shoes and No. 23, a statement number in basketball made famous by Michael Jordan. She moved from Milwaukee to Murfreesboro in middle school, and she later stood out at Blackman High School. Moore is a junior in school but a sophomore on the court — she tore her ACL in September, allowing her to sit out the remainder of the year and reserve a season of eligibility.
“My freshman year they asked me to score the ball,” Moore tells the Scene after practice on Jan. 17, 20 hours before tip-off against Auburn. “And play defense. If I was doing those two things, and playing with energy and effort, I was gonna see the floor. Everyone who knows me knows I’ll pass the ball — I look to get my teammates involved. But they told me, ‘You can’t keep passing up opportunities.’ Every time in practice, it was shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot.”
Three years later, Moore will take the open shot. She’s third in points behind Cambridge and post Sacha Washington, the same teammates she relies on for support and for the ball. “Jordyn knows how I like to score, where I like to score, and gets me the ball on time,” says Moore.
The team also leans heavily on Jordyn Oliver, recently recruited by Ralph from Duke, where she was an all-conference starter and got a taste of the NCAA tournament in 2023. Washington, a hard-driving junior with WNBA aspirations, controls the paint for Vanderbilt on offense and defense. Against Auburn, a block from Washington midway through the second quarter sparked her own 7-point run, including a physical drive through traffic that resulted in a coveted 3-point play.
Vanderbilt thrives on that kind of basketball. They hassle you. They put hands in your face. Players pride themselves on defense first, and when it works, Vanderbilt controls the entire floor. When it doesn’t, the team’s all-in pressure can give up easy lanes and uncovered shots, the formula that Missouri used to outshoot Vanderbilt en route to a 65-63 comeback win on Jan. 14.
Compared to an exciting and productive defense, the Dores’ offense can seem like an afterthought — what you do when you’re not getting steals or blocks, picking off passes, jumping for rebounds or protecting the rim. Everyone shoots well from the free-throw line, but a comfortable win often takes standout performances from shooters like Moore and Pierre.
If she gets the opportunity, Coach Ralph will shout out every player on her roster: Justine Pissott, a tenacious defender with a strong 3-point shot; senior Bella LaChance, whom Ralph calls the team’s “engine”; or sophomore Ryanne Allen, who came off the bench for two clutch 3s against Missouri.
“Yes, we’re playing a sport, and we want to win at that sport, and our players are very talented at it,” says Ralph, pacing in the practice gym. “But we’re also trying to grow as a group that really loves each other, cares about each other, and wants the best for each other. If we can teach them what that looks and feels like as they move on into life, no matter what we do out here, we’ll be successful.”
