Last Saturday Fairfield beat Niagara 70-62 in OT in the MAAC women’s tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to next week’s NCAA tournament. The Stags only went 15-15 last year but thanks to a conference-record 29-game winning streak they are heading to the NCAA tourney for the 6th time in program history. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Fairfield women’s coach Carly Thibault-DuDonis about her team’s storybook season.
You played basketball at Monmouth: how good a player were you back in the day? I was average. I was a good shooter and prided myself on all the intangibles: playing hard, being a good teammate, etc.
You were named NEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year and were valedictorian of the Class of 2013 while graduating with a 4.0 GPA: how did you balance your work on the court with your work in the classroom? My running joke is that I could never sleep on buses so I did all my homework on road trips! I really got into my major and just enjoyed learning: anything I do is to the best of my ability with no stone unturned.
You were a Psychology major with a double minor in Spanish/Health Studies: which of those degrees come in handiest as a basketball coach (if any)? The psychology degree, of course! If I had not become a coach then I would have gone down the sports psychology route, which is what my thesis was on. So much of what we do as coaches is more than X’s and O’s.
You made back-to-back NCAA title games as an assistant to Vic Schaefer at Mississippi State: what is the key to winning games in March? You need to be well-conditioned and have good habits/fundamentals. We ran the same defensive drills day in and day out through April. We have student-athletes who are tough/disciplined: when you face adversity you need to stay focused.
You were an assistant to Hall of Famer Lindsay Whalen at Minnesota, who you 1st befriended when she played for your father: what made her a Hall of Fame player, and what made her such a good coach? As a player I remember her getting drafted in 2004: that was the 1st time I saw a female use her body the way that she did. She could take contact and put some English on the ball, which I had never seen a woman do. As a PG/floor general she knew when her team needed her to score and when they needed her to get others involved. What made her a great coach is that she enjoyed the moments off the court (airport/team dinner/etc.): she lived in the moment and I am thankful for the way she did that.
In the MAAC tourney title game on Saturday you had an 8-PT OT win over Niagara: how were you able to overcome a 13-PT 2nd half deficit, and what did it mean to you to win a title? It took a lot of guts/grit by our team both individually/collectively. We knew that we had to dig in and get some defensive stops. We finally settled in offensively and kind of loosened everyone else up. It means so much to our team/program/university. We are an athletic department on the rise: I came here so that we could be competitive in the NCAA tourney so this is obviously a huge step. I really wanted it for our team: I have never been around a group this special that gets along so well.
Your team went 15-15 last year in your debut year but is currently on a conference-record 29-game winning streak: how were you able to make such a huge improvement in just 1 year? First and foremost our returners did an unbelievable job of setting the tone dating back to last spring/summer. They were the foundation, and then we brought in 7 new players including 4 freshmen/3 transfers. We play a 5-out system and this year we fully dove into that. My staff did a deep dive on being intentional about who we recruited, then changed our offense to reflect the team we have. We figured out what we liked and did not like and blended it all together.
Your husband Blake is 1 of your assistants: what is the best part of having a husband as an assistant, and what is the not-so-best part (if any)? It has been amazing! I do not think there is a not-so-best part because we have had so much fun. When my brother worked for my dad he gave him direct/honest feedback: my husband set the tone for our staff that it is okay to challenge ideas. Basketball and family have always been 1 and the same: it is not a 9 to 5 job so to see each other is nice.
Your father Mike was a 3-time WNBA COY and your brother Eric is head coach of the Washington Mystics: who is the best coach in the family? My mom! She does not coach basketball but coaches all of us. We all do things a little bit differently and have our own strengths/weaknesses.
What kind of seed do you think you deserve, and what kind of seed do you think you will get? I think that we deserve a 12-seed: we have done everything we could possibly do of controlling our controllables besides a 3-PT loss at Vandy. Our average margin of victory is almost 20 PPG and we are top-25 in many different stat categories so our resume speaks for itself. I could see potentially a 13…but we deserve a 12.