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Very few women’s basketball coaches have had the consistent success that Troy University head coach Chanda Rigby has had over the past decade and she’s as excited heading into her 13th year at the helm as she’s ever been.

Troy was selected to finish second in the Sun Belt Conference by the league’s coaches during the preseason despite losing almost all of its production in 2023-2024 to graduation.

“Even though we lost 90 percent of our scoring and rebounding from last year’s team to graduation, we are extremely optimistic about how high the ceiling for this team is this year,” Rigby said.

Rigby laid out a number of reasons why she and her staff are optimistic about the 2024-2025 season.

“The first reason is we have really good players,” she flatly said. “We only have three returners from last year’s team, but they are set and ready to help and are leading. We also have some really good incoming players.”

Rigby said that she and her staff have made some tweaks to the program’s offense and defense to accommodate the specialized players that have come into the program.

“A little bit different than last year’s team is that we have specialists in different areas,” said Rigby. “We have some three-point sharpshooters and we have some guards that are really good off the dribble. We also have some true post players and rim protectors.

“The coaching staff and I have really tailored what we’re doing on offense and defense to our personnel. We are going to be up and pressing more off missed baskets, which is the first time we’ve done that since I’ve been at Troy. We’ve changed what we’re doing on offense and tweaked it on defense to cater to the personnel we have.”

Troy’s returning players include junior Zay Dyer, senior Shaulana Wagner and Leilani Guion. Those players have been called on to be leaders and each player came up with a word for the team’s motto.

“Our three returners immediately stepped in and realized we have a whole new team here but we didn’t want to lose what is true to Troy Basketball and they have stepped up to lead,” Rigby said. “One of the first things they did was they each adopted a word that they wanted to lead with this year. One adopted the word ‘Dawg,’ which describes the grittiness of a Troy player. Another chose ‘family’ and ‘discipline’ was the other word. They took those core values of what we have going at Troy and they make sure they are leading with that.”

Troy’s incoming class of new players includes three junior college (JUCO) All-Americans in Fortuna Ngnwao, Adriana Jones and Khila Morris. Troy also added former JUCO stars Jamirica Roberson and Emani Jenkins, Florida Gulf Coast transfer Ashley Baez, Mercer transfer Briana Peguero, Arkansas State transfer Emma Imevbore and Oklahoma State transfer Brianna Jackson.

“We’ve been living off junior college transfers since I got here,” Rigby said of utilizing the transfer portal. “So, we’re used to having a player for just one or two years and putting our heart, soul and effort into them and forming a new team but keeping the continuity. It is a lot about making sure we don’t lose what is unique to Troy and what has worked for us in the past and putting that at the forefront when the new team gets here.

“At the same time, these aren’t brand new babies here. We have three All Americans transferring from junior college on this team. We also listen to them and what has worked for them in the past and see how we can maybe implement that and make their voice heard.”

The Trojans have also added to the coaching staff recently with the hiring of assistant coach Grace Daniels. Daniels comes to Troy after serving as assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Houston Christian University last season. Daniels played college hoops at UTSA and started her coaching career as a graduate assistant at ULM from 2021 through 2023.

Troy has one of the toughest non-conference schedules in all of college basketball. Troy will start the season off at Buffalo in the MAC-SBC Challenge on Nov. 4 before traveling to Montana State on Nov. 7, Alabama on Nov. 10, UT-Chattanooga on Nov. 14, LSU on Nov. 18 and then traveling to Alaska for the Great Alaska Shootout against Alaska-Anchorage on Nov. 22 and both Vermont and North Dakota State on Nov. 23. Troy closes out the brutal road stretch on Dec. 1 at Mississippi Valley State.

“It’s going to be challenging, we’ll be missing our Trojan fans in the arena and we hope when we get back in December they’ll show up and be there,” Rigby said. “We think we’ll be battle tested and road tested when we come back from all of that. We have a lot of cold trips to places like Alaska and in the midst of that we’ll play Alabama on their court and we’ll play a Top 10 team in LSU.

“We play a lot of tough teams, whether it’s cold outside or you’re playing straight cold ballers. We’ll be ready when we come back to hopefully put a consistent product on the floor in the Sun Belt Conference against 13 other really tough teams.”

The Trojans finally open the home schedule on Dec. 4 against Oakwood. Troy’s 2023-2024 team made a historic run to the Fab 4 in the WNIT and Rigby said she’d love to see the atmosphere that Trojan Arena had for that game all season long.

“We had over 4,000 fans there and they weren’t just sitting on their butts, they were standing and cheering the whole game,” Rigby recalled. “It was an electrifying atmosphere. Between men’s and women’s basketball, we’re the most successful basketball program in the conference the last five years. Why not have that all the time? We’re the best show in town during that time of year. We hope the fans will come out every night and fill up Trojan Arena.”