SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TIPOFF MEDIA DAYS

October 13, 2026

Shea Ralph

Vanderbilt Commodores

Women's Media Day Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Coach Shea Ralph is beginning her sixth year as head coach at Vanderbilt University. Please welcome to the dais Coach Shea Ralph.

Q. Coach, why did you bring these two players, and what are some of the things you're trying to accomplish this year with your team?

SHEA RALPH: Well, first of all, it's always wonderful to be here to represent Vanderbilt, and the two players that I brought with me today are two that embody who we are at Vanderbilt on and off the court to their very core. They're the best back court in the country, and it's pretty simple why. They have had and continue to have the vision here to be champions on and off the court.

So they work at a rate every single day on the basketball court, in the community, in the classroom to be great, to be excellent. They set the standard for our team. They're two of the most coachable kids I've ever coached. They play with joy, and they set a wonderful example for our team and on our campus for what it looks like to work to be great at something, to be a champion at basketball.

So we really are proud to have them here today, but they're even better young women that represent us at Vanderbilt.

Q. Obviously outstanding point guard in Aubrey Galvan. What do you envision her next step being for you this season?

SHEA RALPH: For her and Mikayla it's very similar. Mikayla has a little bit more experience under her belt. Aubrey and Mikayla have the ball in their hands a lot. As a point guard, she needs to be a leader. She needs to be me on the court. Our connection has to be unshakeable, so everything that we need her to accomplish, she needs to be able to do without direction from me during games.

Her and Mikayla are a great team in that way. So we have worked a lot over the course of the summer into the preseason on making sure that she has a voice, and that's in the locker room, that's on the court. That's her and I staying connected. It's natural for her. It's just part of growing up.

Aubrey wants to win. She's very confident in who she is. She's very confident on what she wants to accomplish on the court. Now it's just getting her to say it. She hasn't shied away from that. It's happened pretty quickly. Like I said, she's a natural at it, so now it's the next step for her is being a leader vocally on the court for us.

Q. Shea, after everything you accomplished last year, what did you do in the offseason, and what have you done in the preseason to try to prevent the release syndrome that can set in when you do set those kind of accomplishments?

SHEA RALPH: Well, thank you for saying that. I think the position that I hold here has nothing to do with me. The things that we accomplished last year weren't anything that were outside of the vision that we had for ourselves.

I understand that you can't do anything great without great people around you. I have an amazing staff and support staff. I have even more amazing players and families. I have an amazing community. I have an incredible athletic director and chancellor. All of them come together to be able to put me in position to do what I love.

For us last year, we stayed very process-oriented. Every single day we want to get better. Every single day we want to compete to win, but we want to do it with joy. I talk a lot about competitive joy.

The results matter to us, but we are not defined by them. So everything that I accomplished last year, that we accomplished as a group was because of the people that we had around us because of the joy that we played with, that we worked with, and the way that we stayed together throughout the season and grew.

That changes nothing about how we approach this year. It changes nothing about our offseason, our preseason. We have a mindset of continuous improvement, of wanting to excel. I think sometimes when you are doing great things is exactly when you should shake it up a little bit, change some things around, see how can we get better. What are the things that we really need to focus on outside of skill and talent, right? Those things exist across our conference. We're the best conference in college women's basketball hands down.

There's a lot of talent and skill. What are the things that we are doing? How do we operate every day outside of that that's going to put us in front, that's going to give us an advantage? Our mindset, our work ethic, our togetherness, our IQ. How are we making sure that we give our culture the same amount of time as we're giving our skill, our conditioning, the weight room, all the things everybody is working on. How do we separate ourselves? So that's what we've worked on this summer.

I would love for our team this year to be player led. I think player-led teams are teams that win championships.

I also believe that the best roster doesn't win the championship. Isn't always the best team. I think the best team is defined by the chemistry that you have. I have a team with a lot of chemistry.

As for me, outside of the season, I spent a ton of time with my family, my friends, the people that I love, and making sure that I'm ready to go for my team this year.

Q. You obviously have Mikayla and Aubrey and a lot of returning production as well as the incoming players as well. How important was that retention for you in this offseason, and how have you kind of seen those returners kind of, I guess, be leaders as you continue to build a team for not just this year but future seasons down the line?

SHEA RALPH: Yes, that's a great question. When we first came here to Vanderbilt, when I first took the job six years ago now, the vision was to be the premiere holistic developmental program in the country.

In that six years, college athletics and the landscape has changed drastically, but our vision has not. I think in order for us to be developmental, we do need to retain players. We need to have kids for longer than a year or two. Sometimes you only have a year, and that's okay too. We'll do as much as we can with that time, and we can do a lot.

They're young women in some of the most formidable years of their life in terms of growing up off the court and also on the court, basketball and life. So retention for me is very important, if not the most important thing that we do here. Making sure that we find the right young ladies, recruiting them, recruiting the right people to the program, number one. Then making sure that we develop them so that they want to be here and that we do the proper things on the court, in the landscape to retain them.

Some of that is in my control. Some of it is not. I have a lot of great support here. I have an AD and a chancellor that have given us so much in terms of resources, and I'm not just talking about NIL. We have the biggest practice facility in the country. Our AD is at every single game. She comes to practices. Our chancellor is around a lot.

We have transformational leadership. So in order for me to do my job well here, I need to retain our players. It also creates a culture here that is safe for them to grow and that shows high school players that you can come here, you can win championships, you can be at a place for your entire career. Hopefully you can win championships. You can be at a place for your entire career and get a great degree that will serve you for the rest of your life.

Q. Obviously you've had back-to-back SEC Freshmen of the Year with Aubrey and Mikayla, and Olivia is a very highly-ranked player coming in. How does she compare to those two, and what do you think she might be able to do this season?

SHEA RALPH: I do not like to compare. I think sometimes it's unfair. I have had and coached some great players. I've played with a lot of great players.

The most comparable aspect of all three of them is their absolute fierce competitiveness. They are relentless competitors. Olivia Jones is very much like Mikayla and Aubrey in that way, where the minute that she stepped on the court, she shook it up because she goes so hard. She has so much fun. She wants to win. She's going to talk smack to you and then laugh.

She is just a relentless competitor and has almost unreasonable confidence in a good way. It's reasonable because she can back it up, but nothing is going to shake either one of those two things. I can work with that.

The other stuff, she'll get. Those are things that you can't coach. Mikayla Blakes has them. Aubrey Galvan has them, and there's a few other on our team that has them as well, which is why I'm feeling really good about this year.

Q. Obviously we've seen a lot of growth in women's college basketball. I'm curious to know what would you say is the current state of women's college basketball and Vanderbilt being at the forefront in part of that process?

SHEA RALPH: The current state of our game is that we're one of the best shows out there. People love to watch our game. Watching college basketball is one thing, but we're also feeding the WNBA. So we are developing these players. We're putting them on the stage. We're putting a product out on the court that people love to support and want to watch.

It's really important. We're in entertainment. We're in entertainment. The skill level, the talent level, the coaching, the togetherness, the ability to have visibility on TV. The fan support is through the roof right now in our game. There's never been a better time.

In terms of where we're at in our sport, I'm so excited to be part of it. I have a unique experience because of the fact that I played. We don't have to talk about how long ago. It was long enough ago that I can tell stories that they don't believe. And also that my mother played, and the stories that she tells me are hard for me to believe.

That is the span of time that I've been in the game and have seen it grown and change to a point now where it's exciting to be part of something that can change lives. Our players' lives, their families' lives, my daughter's life, who is now looking up to these players and wants to be a professional basketball player when she grows up. So the state of the game is great.

In terms of at Vanderbilt, I also feel like we are in -- this is an inflexion point for us. We have continued to climb. We've continued to get better. We're continuing to chase the vision that we set in place, and we're not going to be done anytime soon.

We want to win championships. We want to be competing for championships every year. We should be in the national conversation every single year for the championships that are out there to win. That is the goal. That will always be the goal here. That should be what we're doing. That is what we're going to do, and that is not going to change anytime soon.

Q. Has the growth of Nashville impacted your recruiting at all? Has that had a positive impact or no impact on recruiting?

SHEA RALPH: It's not a negative, right? The growth of Nashville is only a positive. It's a fun city to come to. It's a fun city to live in. I'm sure it's a fun city to go to coll -- ask our players, you know? Maybe not too many questions about it.

There's just a lot going around. The thing I think I love most about Nashville is that the people there have the same mindset that we do, so you come across musicians, artists. You can even go to a farmer's market, and I go to this one in Nashville where there is a woman that sells olive oil, and she is so passionate about how she sells her olive oil, where she gets it, how she -- she's so passionate about it because she believes that it's the best in the world.

Those are the people that exist in Nashville. So those are the people, outside of what I am doing with my players, what they're doing at Vanderbilt, that are surrounding them and continuing to help them grow. I feel really great about that. I think it's a great environment for them to grow, but it's also just a fun city to be in. There's a lot of resources. There's a lot of young people. There's a lot of music and great food.

If you haven't come to a game yet in Nashville, you should come. Just come visit the city.

Q. You talked about obviously your daughter being at the games and wanting to be a professional basketball player. Your husband on staff as well. I guess just how cool, how enjoyable has it been for you to have this journey with your family as well?

SHEA RALPH: That's a great question. Probably one that I'm not adequate enough, I'm not well-spoken enough to put into words.

I think the best way that I can say it is that as I've gotten into my career in coaching, as I've gotten older and have had more life experience, I am completely aware that what I'm doing now, the gifts that I've been given both my players, my staff, and most importantly, my family, are all blessings.

So this is what I've been called to do, and the things that I have every day have been given to me by God, and it's my job to take great care of them and to continue to cultivate the environment for them to grow.

So with my husband and my daughter, that is my greatest joy in life that I get to do what I love with the people that I love. I wake up every day just happy to have what I have and grateful for the opportunity I have to leave Vanderbilt better, our program better, and to impact the lives of the young women, especially my daughter, around me so that as they grow up, hopefully they'll be able to do the same for others.