A northeast HC job opens + Chatham secures impact transfer
A NAC program will be led by a new head coach next season. An all-conference transfer is heading to Chatham. And I break down the final 5 teams in my end-of-season Top 25.
Is it too early to begin the countdown to the 2025-26 season? Whenever we reach this point in the year, it always feels a bit weird after going nonstop with in-season coverage from November-March, with games on seemingly every day of the week with few exceptions. But that’s okay, because there’s still plenty going on, even as we venture deeper into the offseason. The coaching carousel has been a bit slow, but then again, the bulk of coaching news in D3 tends to happen later in the cycle in late April and May, so I’d expect some sort of uptick to come over the next few weeks. For some historical context, last season, we had 13 moves amongst D3 head coaches by April 14. By July, we had over 45. So take that as a sign that the carousel is still spinning, and may even pick up pace here soon. Only time will tell!
Thomas College HC job opens
Speaking of coaching news, the head coaching position at Thomas College was officially posted yesterday afternoon, bringing our total to 18 vacated head coaching positions this offseason. Six have been filled so far, and a handful are close to announcing their next head coach, conducting on-campus interviews with finalists this week.
Thomas, out of the North Atlantic Conference, is coming off a 7-18 campaign under third-year head coach Jason Coleman. A reason for the change was not reported.
Located in rural Waterville, Maine—the same city as fellow D3 member Colby College—this will be a rebuild job for whoever takes the helm. Thomas’ last season above .500? 2006-07, when the Terriers went 14-12. That said, the program is very capable of increasing its relevance on a conference level fairly quickly, having made some solid strides under Coleman’s leadership. After going 1-10 in the NAC in 2021-22—the season prior to his arrival—the Terriers increased their conference win total in each of the last three years, finishing 7-6 this past winter.
It should also be noted that winning isn’t absent from Thomas’ athletic department, a positive sign for those aiming to get into the running for the job. Just last year, Thomas won NAC titles in women’s outdoor track & field and men’s tennis, and in 2022-23, the Terriers claimed championships in both men’s outdoor track & field and men’s tennis.
I said this on X yesterday afternoon, but I’d anticipate Gavin Kane to be in the running for the job. I say that without inside knowledge of the search, but on the surface, his resume stacks up very well, especially from a regional recruiting standpoint. He served as the program’s associate head coach and head club women’s basketball coach this past season after seven years as the head women’s coach at fellow NAC member Maine-Presque Isle. An inductee into both the New England Basketball Hall of Fame and Maine Basketball Hall of Fame, Kane has a proven track record, knows the area for recruiting purposes, and also has coaching experience with the current players at Thomas. All those aspects are worth considering. Whether Kane wants the job or whether the Thomas administration wants to go in that direction remains to be seen, but it’s something to keep an eye on.
Chatham gains commitment from All-AMCC honoree
For the second year in a row, Chatham is making waves in the portal, having secured yet another impactful transfer in the late spring. Paige Gratto, who played the last two seasons at Pitt-Bradford, announced her commitment to Chatham on Monday, joining a program that finished as the PAC Tournament runner-up this past season and won the league in 2024.
Gratto, a 5-8 guard/forward from Sherman, New York, heads to Pittsburgh with two years of eligibility, having earned All-AMCC honors in both 2024 and 2025. A second-team all-conference selection this past season, she started all 23 games she played in, averaging 35.7 minutes/game. Over two seasons with the Panthers, Gratto averaged 17.2 points per game, leading the team in scoring both years. That included a 24-point effort as a freshman against eventual AMCC champ Penn State-Behrend, and a trio of 24-point performances this past season, including once against AMCC Tournament winner La Roche. At 16.9 PPG, Gratto accounted for 29% of Pitt-Bradford’s scoring in 2024-25, along with averaging 8.4 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game.
I often get asked about highlighting commitments/incoming transfers in D3 women’s hoops. The majority of it comes from commitment posts on social media, though there’s no great way to find all the commitments out there. So if you want to bring a transfer announcement to my attention, feel free to send in your recruiting/transfer news to rileyzayas@gmail.com, and I’ll be sure to highlight it in a future newsletter.
Final ballot breakdown — #21 to #25
As the main storylines at this point in the spring move to coaching news, I figured I’d continue pairing my brief breakdowns of my final Top 25 ranking with coaching carousel updates and other news. This is the last installment of this breakdown series on my final Top 25 of the 2024-25 season. Look for a way-too-early Top 30 to come at some point this summer.
Carnegie Mellon (21-6): Honestly, if I had to pick a turnaround team of 2024-25, CMU would be my first pick. This was a program that went just 3-11 in the UAA in 2023-24 and hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2015-16, yet put up a 10-4 mark against conference opponents and reached the second round of the national tournament this season. To flip things like that—with Nicole Timko being the only real addition to the main rotation—is simply incredible. Kathy McConnell-Miller made the Tartans relevant again, not just in the UAA, but nationally. CMU won 7 of its last 8 UAA games, the only loss coming to NYU, and kept that momentum going in its first round tournament win over Bridgewater State. It was just the second time CMU ever advanced to the second round, and the way the Tartans pushed Johns Hopkins, who I valued pretty highly throughout the season, said plenty about CMU too. Sure, JHU went up 16-4 early, but then the Tartans punched back with that 24-9 run before halftime, and ended up losing by just 10. This may have been one of the best CMU teams in history, only second to the 2016 squad’s Sweet 16 run.
SUNY Geneseo (24-7): Yes, Geneseo was the Cinderella of this year’s tournament, the Empire 8 tournament champs who went to the Sweet 16 and knocked off Catholic in the first round. But it’s not like they came out of nowhere. The Knights entered the postseason 22-6, with a 14-2 record out of a two-bid E8. Amongst their early losses were single-digit defeats at the hands of Amherst, Hamilton, and Wesleyan, all games I believe they would’ve won had they been played a month later. Geneseo made tremendous strides as the tournament got closer, especially as some of the younger players in the rotation came into their own. Multiple people who saw Geneseo play in person in February and March have told me how impressed they were with the Knights’ personnel and style, using their size in the post—leading scorer Kristin Suydam is 6’3 and fourth-leading scorer Audrey Hintz is 6’1—while keeping things balanced with their backcourt. Mackenzie Reigle was one of the best guards in Region 3, and stepped up some big tournament performances, including 22 against NYU. Because of that balance, with very capable guards and multiple reliable options in the post, Geneseo proved to be a difficult matchup. That was also true defensively, as they quite literally shut down Catholic’s outside shooting in the first round upset in our nation’s capital, holding the Cardinals to a 6-of-37 mark from the field. They then rolled over Montclair State like it was no problem—the final score was 71-49—and played NYU closer than anyone else all season, losing by 19. Geneseo took the lead at multiple points in the first half against the eventual national champs, and the way they kept pace with the Violets for a full half was indicative of the level at which Geneseo was playing in March. That certainly factors into my voting, and in the end, I really liked what I saw, stats and metrics aside, which led to them at No. 22 in my final ranking.
McMurry (23-6): I took a lot of time to weigh my last four teams when I was putting the ballot together. I went back and forth on McMurry throughout this season, but the Sweet 16 run helped their case quite a bit. It was clear that they were a talented team all year, led by senior Emily Holland and junior Kylie Flippin, but it takes things to another level when you find yourself in a must-win situation and excel under that pressure. After an early exit in the SCAC semifinals the week prior, McMurry took care of business in the first round, beating Cal Lutheran, 79-63. But they then won a tightly-contested 66-63 win over Texas Lutheran the following day, a SCAC vs SCAC rematch for a spot in the Sweet 16. For all that’s said about the difficulty of beating a good team three times, McMurry did just that against TLU over the course of the season. And that was in addition to a big week in mid-December, when they beat ETBU and UMHB—the ASC’s top two teams in the regular season standings—on consecutive days. For a program that struggled to make the ASC Tournament as recently as 2021, seeing the Warhawks in the Sweet 16 was a cool storyline to follow, capping off arguably their best season in over two decades.
UW-La Crosse (17-12): UWL was one of the more fascinating teams to track in this first year of NPI. Pretty early on, it was clear that two things would end up being true: UWL would have played one of the toughest schedules in the country by the time selection time came around and they’d probably have a win percentage below .600. NPI ended up rewarding the resume enough (bolstered by wins over UW-Oshkosh and UW-Stout in WIAC play) for UWL to slide into the final spot in Pool C when it was all said and done. They backed it up too, not only beating Colorado College on a neutral court in the first round, but dominating in a 79-52 win. The Eagles missed out on a trip to the second weekend by a single point, losing to WIAC rival UW-Whitewater, 50-49, the following night. Sure, I never expected I’d have a 17-12 team in my final ballot, but you have to look deeper than the record here. Because not only did UWL play in a league that featured 3 Sweet 16 teams and 2 Final Four teams, but they also went up against Gustavus Adolphus, Bethel, and Hope in non-conference. No team was tested more and at a higher level than UWL, which showed up when they were put in a tournament setting against Colorado College. I said this a while back, but there were few teams, in my eyes, as good as making late-game pressure free throws than UWL. Take the WIAC quarterfinal vs Stevens Point; UWL went the final three minutes with just one made field goal. But in that same span, the Eagles went 9-of-10 at the line to preserve the lead and win by 4. That was valuable, as was Lauryn Milne’s presence on both ends of the floor. Because of the starpower in the WIAC, Milne wasn’t talked about nearly as much as she should’ve been, but in UWL’s biggest games, the senior always seemed to step up. She had 24 points in a crucial Feb. 15 win over Oshkosh, and went 4-of-5 from 3 in a narrow loss to Hope in November. And those are just two examples. I felt pretty good about putting UWL within my final Top 25 based on the quality of their results, especially in both rounds of the tournament.
East Texas Baptist (23-5): This 25th spot was difficult to settle on. I had a few teams in consideration, all with some flaws on their resume, but some considerable strengths as well. For a quick rundown on ETBU…1) All 4 losses to D3 opponents came to teams that made the NCAA Tournament, 2 of whom made the Sweet 16, 2) In the 9th-best conference in the country per Massey Ratings, ETBU went 8-0, then a perfect 2-0 in the ASC Tournament, 3) The Tigers’ offensive balance stood out as the season went on, with 6 different players averaging more than 6.1 points per game, led by ASC Player of the Year Payton Hicks. There’s a reason ETBU ended up No. 12 in NPI at selection time. But the obvious flaw is the first round loss to Texas Lutheran, which puts a bit of a damper on the resume, as solid as it is. But you also have to consider that was one of the most even matchups—seeding-wise in the tournament—as it was forced by geography in the Texas pod, and the desire to avoid a non-conference rematch between ETBU and McMurry in the first round. But when you consider TLU was the SCAC Tournament champ and had a great deal of momentum heading into the tournament, ETBU’s loss doesn’t seem earth-shattering, certainly not in the same range as CNU or Catholic’s first-round tournament losses. And when you consider the eye test and overall body of work, I still feel pretty confident that ETBU was far stronger than what that 62-59 loss to TLU showed. They shot the ball poorly in that one, especially from long-range, and struggled to defend coming out of halftime, which was fairly uncharacteristic for the nation’s No. 23 team in defensive efficiency. So that was the thought process behind keeping ETBU in my ballot, even considering the early tournament exit.