Shea Ralph tossed as Vanderbilt falls flat in SEC quarterfinals

Greenville, SC — Vanderbilt Coach Shea Ralph was ejected during a 89-78 loss To ole miss In the quarterfinals of the SEC women’s basketball tournament on Friday night, the Commodores’ slim chances at a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament are likely to end.

Ole Miss confused the fifth-ranked Commodores defensively from the beginning of the game, upsetting and frustrating the reigning SEC Player of the Year. Mikayla Blakes And his teammates helped the Rebels lead grow to 32 points over the first three quarters.

Then, early in the fourth, Blake was whistled for his fourth foul. Ralph yelled at the officers and was thrown out. During the broadcast, he can be heard questioning the call and telling officials, “You suck.”

“I wasn’t trying to get out,” Ralph said. “I also feel that at that time, what I said was necessary, and the actions I took were necessary, and I will stand behind that. You want to call me out for it, they can take me out. The fight that I like is shown by my team. There are only so many ways you can say something over and over again, so I said it in a different way, and I got called out, which is OK.”

When asked why what he did was appropriate, Ralph said, “Don’t try to fine me,” before adding, “As a coach, we just want consistency from our team, from our staff, from everybody involved in the game. That’s all I’m looking for.”

Later, when asked about Blake’s struggles early in the game, Ralph said, “I thought she was fouled. She was being stopped, and there’s a lot of ways you can answer that. What I know about her is that she’s going to fight to win the game. And that kid kept fighting to the end.”

Blake had one point on 0-of-10 shooting in the first half and finished with 24 points. He scored 13 in the fourth quarter, helping spark the Commodores after Ralph fouled out. Vanderbilt showed new life from that point forward but could not close the margin to single digits.

Ralph joked, “Looking at the way he played, the fight he showed, I probably should have been thrown out earlier.”

Still, Ralph said the result doesn’t change anything for Vanderbilt as it heads into the NCAA Tournament, except it might provide a little extra motivation.

“It doesn’t change anything about our season, it doesn’t change anything about what we’ve done,” Ralph said, “and I think it just adds fuel to the fire for what’s next.”