Kim Caldwell being hired at Marshall seemed like a no-brainer and that does not require the benefit of hindsight. Her career as Head Coach at D-II Glenville State was stupid. It seemed made up. How about a 191-24 overall record over seven seasons? How about a 132-12 record against her conference during that span? Her teams’ stats read like a video game: over 90 points per game? She won the regular season conference championship six times; the conference tournament four times; and made the NCAA tournament seven times. Remember, she was there seven seasons. Caldwell (nee Stephens) was the D-II National Coach of the Year in 2022. There were many more accolades for her and her team. Suffice to say, she had the resume.
But no one–no one–thought she would have the year she had here at Marshall in the Sun Belt in year one. Sure, we all believed she would have success, but we all thought, stated, and believed that there would be qualifiers. Let’s list them. It would take time to fully implement her system and have it translate to wins on the court. She did not have her players here yet. She did not have a full recruiting cycle. Some said there may be a short learning curve coming to Division I. We were all horribly wrong, folks!
Early Season Thoughts
Marshall started off with a 2-4 record, and one of those wins was against a D-II foe. The first six games: Loss to George Mason 84-77; win over Chattanooga 79-74; loss to Northern Kentucky 76-66; win over (D-II) Point Park 121-55; loss to Wright State 89-79; and loss to Morehead State 67-64. Quick, what was everyone saying at this point? I’ll answer for you. It was something like, “We expected growing pains,” or, “It could be a tough year, but once she gets the system working and her players here. . .” Did I mention how wrong we all were?
What happened from here on honestly sounds made up again. Leading scorer from the previous season and the first six games of this season Roshala Scott would no longer be on the team moving forward. The team had not scored more than 79 points against a D-I team and had been in the 60s twice. Scott had been scoring 21.0 points per game. They would be facing the SEC Florida Gators in the next game. They beat those Gators 91-88 to kick off a 21-2 run to end the regular season.
Dominance. Pure Dominance.
During that 21-2 run, Caldwell’s Herd lost at Wake Forest 66-59 in a game they were leading heading into the final quarter, then a home game later in the season against James Madison 72-63. Besides those games, they routinely scored in the 90s and bested 100 a few times. They would trail in games and then flip the switch to go on a huge run and win handily. Caldwell never seemed to feel like her team was out of it and they sure mirrored her.
The team’s only true post player, Mahogany Matthews, missed 11 games in a row with an injury. During that span, Marshall went 10-1. Again, they were already down one starter from the beginning of the year. Caldwell and The Herd did not care. It was just a matter of next woman up, and team over everything. There were still line changes–all five players being substituted at once–and their relentless style of play remained. This was a Kim (Stephens) Caldwell team, and they were already firing on all cylinders.
The SBC Tournament
Their 17-1 conference record made The Herd the number one seed for the Sun Belt Conference Tournament, and recipient of a double bye. When they did play their first game, they absolutely demolished Appalachian State 116-74 and set or shattered all kinds of Sun Belt Tournament records. They then faced a tough Old Dominion squad and came from behind to beat the 76-70 to move to the championship game against James Madison. That game is one of the best college basketball games you will ever see.
Marshall started off shooting abysmally from the floor but especially from behind the arc. They clawed back and went on a huge run to seemingly put the game away, only to see James Madison also make a run. The game went to overtime and Marshall won 95-92 in overtime in one of the wildest games you could ever see. Check out the back and forth on win probability, especially from a few minutes before the fourth quarter until the end of the game. The team stats box score is also one of the more insane stat lines you will see.
So Many Accolades
Let’s recap Coach Kim Caldwell’s first year, a year that we all said would be a transition; a learning curve year; a year of lowered expectations:
- Most wins by a coach in the first year (26 so far)
- Most wins in program history (26 so far)
- Regular season Sun Belt Conference Championship
- Sun Belt Conference Tournament Championshp
- Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year
- First appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 1997
And that is not covering the national rankings in the top 10 in many different stats or the fact that Point Guard Abby Beeman was the Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year. And one stat that hopefully does not get overlooked is that we doubled our attendance from last year. Yes, doubled. And there are still countless fans out there that have yet to get to The Cam to witness this team in person. I encourage you to change that if you are in that category.
How Could This Year Be Better?
Well, Marshall still has the NCAA Tournament to make some noise. They are the 13th seed against 4th seed Virginia Tech in the “Portland 3” region. That game is in Blacksburg, VA at 3:30pm this Friday, and televised on ESPN 2. It is an easy travel game for Herd fans, but tickets were sold out via presale to Virginia Tech season ticket holders before they went on sale to the public, and tickets on the secondary market are going for astronomical prices. That is terribly unfortunate.
However, Marshall with Coach Caldwell’s system is the type of team that can make a serious run in a tournament. Her team is a team, and everyone plays their part well. You will routinely see someone step up and put up 15-20 points which may be well above their average. You may see the team shooting so poorly they should not have a shot to knock off a good team but they forced 39 turnovers in a championship win. No matter what they do in this tournament and how far they will go, this season is already historic.
And being year one, Coach Caldwell is just getting started.
Awesome article. Spot on the Marshall versus JMU game description. One of the best games I’ve ever watched. Go Herd.