The Indiana State women’s basketball team is gearing up for its season with new head coach Marc Mitchell.
Mitchell was named the 10th head coach in team history May 10. His last coaching job was in Indianapolis where he guided the NCAA DII University of Indianapolis Greyhounds to a double-digit win improvement as well as their first win in the Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament in over six years.
But that isn’t the only success story in his coaching career.
He earned his first NCAA head-coaching job at Fairleigh Dickinson-Florham in 2009-10. Over the course of the next nine seasons, he helped the program become a national powerhouse.
In 2013, he led the Devils to the first of six consecutive Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Freedom titles and their first-ever NCAA tournament appearance. These accomplishments helped him earn MAC Freedom Coach of the Year accolades during that tenure.
His season came in 2013-14 when Mitchell was voted the NCAA DIII Coach of the Year after coaching the Devils to a 33-0 record and national championship.
The following season he helped lead them to a 29-win season and Elite Eight appearance.
Mitchell finished his tenure at FDU-Florham with six NCAA appearances and an 187-67 (.736) record as the program’s all-time winningest coach.
He also spent four seasons at Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City, N.J., where he took over a program that averaged more than 26 losses over the previous eight seasons.
Mitchell was able to turn the program around into a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) contender. The crowning achievement there was in the 2020-21 season when he led the Peacocks to their first winning conference record since 2008-09 and first MAAC championship game appearance in almost two decades.
With his success that season, he was named MAAC Coach of the Year. This was the program’s first such award since 1999.
Last season with the previous coaching staff, they finished with records of 11-21 overall and 6-14 in the Missouri Valley Conference. With Mitchell coming in this season, he said they just want to get better.
Regarding the strength of the team that Mitchell sees going into this season, he touched on its quickness at every position — guard, forward and post.
“I think we’re just going to have to try to use our speed,” Mitchell said.
“We don’t have a tremendous amount of size, but we do have some pretty good athletes on our team that like to get up and down floor and run, so we’re going to play to our strengths.”
He said he wants to put his stamp on the program and build up the culture. When it comes to challenges that the Sycamores will face this season, Mitchell explained how they need to get to know each other. He said he has to get to know who they are and they have to get to know who he is, including his expectations, and figure their way through that.
“The players are getting to know who I am and what I’m about,” Mitchell said.
With that comes hard work to adjust to a different style of play that this season’s team might not necessarily be used to.
“Those are some of our challenges, but understanding that there’s no escaping hard work and there’s no way to get around it,” Mitchell said. “To get an A on a test, you have to study for the test.”
He said they want to understand what hard work really looks like.
He noted his excitement for coaching in the MVC, saying how it’s second to none and how talented the players in the conference are.
“Some of these top players in this league are just tremendous basketball players,” Mitchell said.
“There’s a toughness, honestly. There’s certainly high basketball IQ from these players.”
When it comes to the team’s roster, they’re bringing two seniors back from last season’s team in Deja Jones and Leah Yarbrough. Sophomore Bella Finnegan is the current returning player who picked up the most points last season. She racked up 306 points overall, good for fourth on last season’s team.
ISU will begin its season Nov. 4 at Western Kentucky in a non-conference battle, with tipoff set for 7 p.m. at Hulman Center. The Sycamores’ first conference matchup will be Dec. 29 when they host Northern Iowa at 2 p.m. at Hulman Center.
