NASHVILLE, TN — Inside the Vanderbilt women’s basketball locker room, there are no phones. No scrolling. No distractions. Just teammates actually talking to each other … and Legos.
It sounds old-school, but it has become a defining piece of the legacy Vanderbilt head coach Shea Ralph is building – one brick at a time.
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Ralph has been coaching at Vanderbilt for five seasons, steadily transforming the program from an SEC underdog into a March threat.
A big part of that transformation: She doesn’t allow phones in the locker room. At all.
“They’re not going to get this time back,” Ralph said. “This is the only time this team is going to be together.”
That mindset is clear inside the locker room setting.
Ahead of their first-round matchup against High Point Saturday, March 21, players are engaged and present, whether they’re speaking with reporters or stacking blocks with teammates.
In a time when that kind of connection can feel rare, the Commodores lean into it. Everyone is listening. Everyone is part of it.
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“We do a really good job of putting together a puzzle that fits each other well, that complements each other,” Ralph said. “We can’t have pieces that are too much similar.”
And in March, that might just be the difference.
For stars like USA TODAY Sports’ All-American Mikayla Blakes, who carries the weight of national attention every day, the locker room provides a rare sense of calm – just regular college students laughing, exchanging colored pieces.
The self-proclaimed “Lego queen,” Sacha Washington, has it nailed on the court and at home.
“You go through a hard practice, you come home, you sit down and watch a TV show, build some Legos, and you end up creating masterpieces,” Washington said.
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For Ralph, it’s about eliminating outside narratives altogether. She doesn’t read headlines. She doesn’t scroll social media.
“You could have flowers growing out of every orifice of your body, and someone’s not gonna like you. They’re just not,” she said.
Vanderbilt is leaning into a system designed to maintain focus, regardless of pressure or expectations. A system that just fits.
“We just try to keep our circle really tight … eliminate the outside noise,” Ralph said.
This tournament, Vanderbilt’s edge might not be a matchup or a stat line – it may be the fact that they are already tuning out the noise.
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The Commodores are set to tip off against High Point at 7 p.m. ET, ready to snap the pieces together for a March Madness masterpiece.
Katielee Smith and Katie Fryburger are students in the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Shea Ralph built Vanderbilt into Women’s March Madness contender
