FAIRFIELD, Conn.: Fairfield coach Carly Thibault-DuDonis had hassle sleeping as a toddler, so she would usually rise up and go downstairs to take a seat together with her dad, now-former NBA assistant and WNBA head coach Mike Thibault, who gave the impression to be all the time awake and breaking down recreation movie.
Thibault-DuDonis would ask questions, changing into a scholar of the sport at a really younger age.
“I always loved being in the gym with my dad’s teams as a kid,” Thibault-DuDonis stated. “And I loved when he made the jump to the WNBA. I got to be around female basketball players and pro athletes. That was really the first time I’d ever seen that. It was the first time I’d ever really seen female coaches.”
Now 32, Thibault-DuDonis is in her second 12 months as a head coach, main Fairfield to a 22-1 report and a 20-game successful streak. The Stags are on the cusp of getting into the AP Top 25 for the primary time in program historical past, receiving 28 votes this week.
The Stags go to Siena (13-10, 10-5) on Thursday.
Mike Thibault, whose son Eric is the top coach of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, stated he by no means pushed both of his youngsters into basketball. In truth, he had a rule that he wouldn’t talk about the sport with them until they requested. But they all the time did, he stated.
“One of my reasons for going to the ‘W’ from the NBA was that we were debating as a family what to do with the Connecticut Sun situation and I had just started coaching her youth team, that year before,” he stated. “And one of her comments along there was, ‘Women’s basketball needs good coaches, too.’”
Thibault-DuDonis turned a ball woman on her dad’s group and have become mates with gamers equivalent to Lindsay Whalen and Brooke Wyckoff, who ultimately turned coaches themselves, and mentors to Thibault-DuDonis.
She served with Wyckoff at Florida State, was an assistant coach at Eastern Michigan, and at Mississippi State, the place she helped coach the Bulldogs to back-to-back championship recreation appearances, earlier than changing into Whalen’s high assistant at Minnesota.
“I would have been a horrible head coach had I not worked for Lindsay,” Thibault-DuDonis stated. “I think it’s really easy to get caught up in the competition, in the business and the wins and losses. And she was people-oriented. And I think that really impacted me in a really positive way.”
Thibault-DuDonis was a shock rent when long-time Fairfield coach Joe Frager retired in 2022 after main the Stags to their first NCAA Tournament look in 21 years.
But senior guard Janelle “Nellie” Brown stated the younger coach instantly sat down with the group, shared her imaginative and prescient, confirmed them the place they may get higher and satisfied them that she cared about them as folks. It additionally helped that she was a lady, and never that far faraway from her personal enjoying days at Monmouth, stated Brown, who’s averaging slightly below 14 factors a recreation.
“She knows what it is being in this tedious generation,” Brown stated. “She understands the pains that we go through, the struggles, the stresses. So it was definitely a factor to help in us really buying into her.”
She additionally recruited properly, touchdown gamers equivalent to freshman Meghan Andersen, who’s averaging slightly below 16 factors per recreation for the Stags.
“She builds connections here and you see that on the court how we play,” Andersen stated. We’re very linked. We have chemistry. And I believe that begins together with her as a result of that’s what she tries to create for us.”
Thibault-DuDonis opened observe final week by leaping right into a capturing contest, draining photographs from 3-point vary after dividing her squad into two groups. Her group received, and the opposite ended up having to do pushups.
Fairfield performs in Connecticut, beneath the appreciable shadow of 11-time nationwide champion UConn. But Huskies coach Geno Auriemma stated he has turn out to be an admirer, noting {that a} 20-game successful streak at any stage may be very onerous to attain and that it’s nearly not possible for a mid-major to crack the Top 25.
“So for them to be doing what they’re doing is pretty incredible,” he stated.
Auriemma then joked: “I was going to ask them if they want to play (us). But I’m not asking anymore. I changed my mind on that one.”
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AP girls’s school basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball
(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)
