SEC coaches weigh in on inevitable leap taken in conference play

Conference play officially begins Jan. 1, 2026, which means each of the programs that make up the SEC will begin to face off against one another in earnest. It’s a time of the year that inspires a key question each team must answer.

“Do we want to be average or good, or do we want to be great?” Vanderbilt coach Shea Ralph told reporters on Dec. 18, “And there’s a lot that I can coach, and there’s a lot that I can’t.”

To a degree, what can’t be coached on the court can still be instilled off it, she added. “What I can do is inspire them to change, right? That’s why they’re all here,” Ralph said.

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Ralph knows exactly what that distinction between good and great looks like. She played under Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma at UConn from 1997-2000 and coached for the Huskies for 13 years before making the move to Nashville. Right now, the Commodores (13-0) are one of several teams currently boasting an undefeated record. That feat is shared by Texas (15-0), which sits atop the SEC in every poll out there, Alabama (14-0), Georgia (14-0) and LSU (14-0).

Differentiating themselves from the rest of that list, the Longhorns spent nonconference play navigating what coach Vic Schaefer described as “the toughest nonconference schedule that I’ve ever had as a head coach or an assistant coach” on Dec. 19. Despite that, Schaefer refrained from assuming Texas would take home a road win against South Dakota State on Dec. 21.

During the holidays, there are “so many distractions,” he explained, and those distractions are why “a lot of people” in the conference don’t play challenging teams ahead of the break.

The Longhorns weren’t given that option. The team’s mentality this season has been “the standard is the standard,” Schaefer continued, “Stop worrying about who we’re playing.”

“You get ready for all of them, don’t take anybody for granted,” he added. “And so that’s kind of what we’ve tried to impart to our team.” His current roster is “young, and they’re smart,” and have thus far proven they’ve “obviously had their antennas up, and they’re paying attention.”

The idea put forth by Ralph – that conference play reveals who wants to be good and who wants to be great – is “probably correct,” Schaefer agreed.

“January, though, will reveal in my mind … it will reveal who’s a player and who isn’t,” he said. “… January and February are such a grind, and by February – middle of late February, people are either playing well and rising to the top or they’re falling to the wayside. It happens every year.”

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The nonconference portion of the season can be used for a variety of purposes, Mississippi coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin told reporters Dec. 30. Her team is “grateful” to have a 13-2 record following a rigorous month and a half of play that allowed them to “get as much film as we can on ourselves and [to play in] different environments and play different styles.”

The team’s two losses were at neutral sites, and one was against a top-25 team, which has left McPhee-McCuin feeling “really good about the amount of experience that we’ve gotten out of the nonconference play.”

McPhee-McCuin expects the shift into SEC play to be “really exciting” but will also introduce “a lot of newness” for her team. Mississippi will need to lean on its leadership and on veteran players, like Cotie McMahon, who has extensive Big Ten and NCAA tournament experience from her time at Ohio State.

Ultimately, McPhee-McCuin concluded that it’s up to coaches to keep players “engaged and understanding that this is the long game, and there will be ebbs and flows.”

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