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SALT LAKE CITY — Five years ago, Tracy Sanders took over a Southern Utah women's basketball program that was building but had yet to reach the full measure of its Division I potential.
The Thunderbirds were shortly removed from the legacy of former coach JR Payne, who rebuilt the program, snapped a run of seven consecutive losing seasons in just her second year, and clinched a Big Sky regular season co-championship to earn the first postseason bid in the Division I era to the WNIT.
Payne left for Santa Clara and finally Colorado in 2016, and Sanders was tasked with taking the next step — the NIT is nice for a program whose previous most recent playoff experience came via the NAIA Division I women's basketball championships in 1988. But the next step was clear: NCAA Tournament, or bust.
Strike out the bust; the 14th-seeded Thunderbirds (23-9) will open the 2023 NCAA women's basketball tournament Friday at third-seeded Notre Dame (25-5) in South Bend, Indiana. No. 6 Creighton will face the play-in game winner Illinois and Mississippi State in the other game in the South Bend subregional.
The South Bend grouping is in the regional based out of Greenville, South Carolina, (the other is based in Seattle) led by No. 1 overall seed and defending national champion South Carolina.
And Sanders was still a bit stunned moments after her team's 82-73 win over California Baptist in the Wester Athletic Conference Tournament final.
"If you had told me that this is what would happen in five years when I took this job, I probably would've laughed at you," Sanders said. "But it's just a testament to the players that we've had, the progress that we've made every single year, and the rest of the squad. They're bought in, they believe in each other, they come to work, and they've had fun. We've had a really fun year, with ups and downs and challenges. But it's been really fun.
"I'm just proud of them," Sanders added. "As a coaching staff, we've believed in them all year. And it's fun to see them get what I feel like they've deserved."
Sanders, a former Saint Mary's star and the West Coast Conference's No. 2 all-time scorer, spent 12 seasons on Paul Thomas' staff with the Gaels, including the last five associate head coach before taking her first head coaching job in Cedar City in 2016.
In her first season, the Thunderbirds hit the ground running, more than doubling their win total with eight that included victories over BYU, San Diego and Utah Valley in nonconference play. SUU improved on the mark through the 2021-22, considered to be one of the best seasons in program history with an 18-12 record, a 14-6 mark in their final year in the Big Sky for second place in the league.
It was the first time since 1996 that Southern Utah had finished three consecutive seasons with a winning record. But something still lacked — an NCAA Tournament berth, which brought back four seniors, added another in Utah Valley transfer Megan Jensen, and included grad student Cherita Daugherty, who went on to become the WAC Tournament Most Outstanding Player — not to mention her daughter Samantha, a junior who prepped at Cedar High.
The season didn't start out as expected, with the Thunderbirds going 4-7 in nonconference play with losses to Gonzaga, Colorado and Utah, among others. SUU rallied, of course, with a 16-2 mark in WAC play before clinching the tournament title with three wins in four days (including a miraculous buzzer-beater by Daugherty against New Mexico State that landed her on SportsCenter).
But for a moment, Sanderson admitted a tiny shade of doubt crept in.
"We struggled through preseason just with healthy bodies," she said. "I think when we played Colorado, we had six players. But they persevered, we got through it, and I think those teams haven't seen our best team.
"We don't talk about the end of the 40 minutes and winning. We talk about the first five minutes, and what people are going to say about us when the game is over. Are they going to say we were tough, and that we fought hard? When we do that, we're successful. We just have to go with that mindset."
