April 4, 2025
Troy’s women’s team has followed up last season’s run to the Postseason WNIT Fab 4 with an extra, giant step – a spot in the championship game for 2025. Only three players from a season ago are on the current roster, but remaking and reshaping teams is routine for head coach Chanda Rigby. We spoke with Rigby about the unique forces behind this year’s effort ahead of Saturday’s title game with Troy (24-13) at Buffalo (29-7).
Q: Roster turnover is something your program seems to handle well. In fact, one transfer into this year’s team, Brianna Jackson, played at Miami, Old Dominio and Oklahoma State before coming to Troy. How do you navigate it?
A: This is what I do. I was a junior college coach before starting at Troy (in 2012) where you have to redo the roster every year or maybe two years if you’re lucky. We don’t really sign high school seniors; we get transfers and it was in style for us way before the portal started. We get second- and third-chance kids; with that, we have won five Sun Belt Championships in nine years. It’s not very often in life you get it right on the first round, your first attempt, and I think this experience at Troy will serve these women well for the rest of their lives. Some of these kids I recruit three or four times and maybe get them on that final trip. And we’ll have to reload again, probably.
Q: For eight seasons, Troy has ended up No. 1 in all of D-I women’s basketball for one important rebounding metric or another. How did that become an identity for the Trojans?
A: The mindset … rebounding is team, period. We track it every day, the best rebounder in practice gets an ice-cold Gatorade, Powerade, and the lowest one, some days we get the blender out and make them a celery and tomato juice, and they drink that. There’s not even a shootaround where we don’t track it, and we reward high rebounders, and the opposite for non-rebounders. You build that muscle memory. This group has the least natural rebounders I’ve had, but we emphasize it so much. It’s in the recruiting and you emphasize it every day.
Q: You’ve been great on the road (overtime win at North Dakota State, surviving a wild 99-96 shootout at Illinois State). What’s been the key?
A: We’ve had two WNIT games at home, one where we had 30 turnovers, I don’t know how we won that game. People trying to make big plays in front of the big crowd, behind-the-back passes. On the road, we have maybe my husband and an administrator, just two fans for us. But we turn underdog situations into champion situations … we’ve been able to settle down and play for the win. We’ve been more focused, in that groove. We only had seven turnovers against Illinois State, best we’ve done all season.
Q: How do you try to prepare for the pressure and demands of a championship game?
A: The worst thing you can do at this point is let a team do what they’ve practiced for 35, 37 games. Everybody is a master of what they do; there were some crazy high-level things I saw (on the Buffalo-Cleveland State tape, the other Fab 4 game) and the forefront of the game plan has to be, find a way to disrupt. We used a zone press (against Illinois State); we usually use a run-and-jump press, but we dialed up the zone press. Whatever is in your back pocket, be ready to pull it out and keep a keen eye on what is disrupting them. Your biggest enemy in the way of this championship may be the comfort of your opponents.
Our players have to focus, be ready to take coaching and get on the same page immediately. On each possession – things can change fast, and if you can’t get on the same page with adjustments, you can’t win at this level.
Q: What’s been the most meaningful aspect of playing in the WNIT?
A: You can’t put a monetary value or really even put into words what the WNIT has meant to us and is meaning to us today. A coaching (peer) told me a few years ago the WNIT could become the mid-major national championship. There’s no chance now of getting a second bid out of the Sun Belt – you have to win your conference tournament. The tournament is a place where a mid-major school, playing your best in March like you’re supposed to do, you have a chance for a national championship experience. This is an amazing opportunity for us, and it’s not really possible on another stage.