By Riley Zayas

Southern Virginia had a season to remember in 2023-24, going a near-perfect 18-1 in USA South Conference play, along with a 22-7 overall record. It culminated with an appearance in the NCAA Tournament, the second in the last three years, as SVU went stride-for-stride with DeSales before falling, 53-42.

But that seems to just be the beginning, for a team whose starting five was made up of four sophomores and a junior in that matchup with DeSales. SVU returns its entire core in 2024-25, with the exception of graduating senior Emma Camden, and is poised for another strong year, not just in the USA South, but on a national scale. The Knights are projected to have one of the highest percentages of returning production in the country, and that will certainly be a storyline to follow as we move closer to another season in Division III women’s basketball.

And leading the program to new heights is Lynette Schroeder, who will enter her sixth year as SVU’s head coach next season. An alum of the program herself, who appeared in 111 contests from 2004-08 and was a four-time USCAA All-America selection, Schroeder is 76-40 in five years as head coach.

Winning is nothing new for Schroeder, who went 112-43 in six years as head coach at Skyline High School (Millcreek, Utah), leading the team to a state title in 2016-17, in additional to five region championships. In fact, following the 2016-17 state championship season, Schroeder was named USA Today’s Utah High School Coach of the Year. She then moved to D2 Westminster College (UT), as an assistant coach, and helped that program reach the RMAC title game for the first time, before earning a bid to the in 2019 NCAA D2 Tournament.

I had the chance to talk with Coach Schroeder recently, discussing her coaching background, this past season, lessons learned from high school coaching, and her excitement for the future of SVU women’s basketball heading into next season.

This was an outstanding past season for your program with the USA South Championship, a new record for wins in a season, and the chance to play in the NCAA Tournament for the second time under your leadership. What clicked so well for you all?

“It was special. I’ve been coaching for a while and it has been a team that I can honestly say really enjoyed being around each other, from No. 1 on the roster and all the way to No. 17. It was definitely a team that cared about each other and respected one another. I think that really played into how they performed on the court.

“They also had this goal. We fell short in our conference tournament last year, just barely missing a chance to go to the championship game. I think that was a really unifying remembrance to the team of, ‘We can do this. We’re capable. It doesn’t matter that we’re majority sophomores. We’re going to see what we can do.’ They really bought into what our goals were.”

Watching your team play this past year, the defensive intensity really stuck out. You all were third in D-III in field goal percentage defense (29.4%). How important is that aspect of the playing style to both limit the number of quality shots your opponent gets, but also generate some offense out of it?

“That is something we talk about every day in practice. We talked about, if there’s a poor shooting night or we’re not doing what we need to do offensively, we can always stay in a game with good defense. It doesn’t take talent or skill to play defense. It takes hard work, grit, and determination. We knew defense can always travel, so we made sure they knew how important it was to play defense. They really understood that their defensive intensity led to better and more efficient scoring opportunities for us.”

This past March, you all got that NCAA Tournament experience, playing DeSales on their home court. And you hung with them, leading 25-23 at halftime and 36-35 through three quarters before they pulled out the win in the fourth. What do you take away from an experience like that when you know you have a lot coming back?

“It was a pretty good three quarters, and we talked about how defensively, they executed the game plan that we had. We came in and knew we could defend, and had almost that full week to scout for what [DeSales] did offensively. We tied it into what we needed to do on the defensive end and started off doing that really well. We were hitting some shots offensively, but you know, as the game went on, DeSales’ defense stepped it up a notch.

“We had many opportunities in the fourth. We just couldn’t put the ball in the basket. As a coaching staff, it’s ‘We know we can play defense. Let’s continue to work offensively,’ which we do a ton. It also helped us be like, ‘Okay, this is what our recruiting pool needs to look like coming in. We need some more consistent shooting. We need a few more playmakers on the offensive end.’ But I was really proud of our athletes and their commitment, [especially] for as young as they are. I didn’t start one senior that game, and it was all but a few’s first experience at an NCAA Tournament. To be at someone else’s home site who is Top 25 in the nation, I was proud of how they handled that.”

This past season, you all did not have a player average double figures in points, but you had five averaging at least 7.2 points per game. Where does that balance come from? Because it definitely keeps the defense on its toes with the ball movement and quality shooters on the floor at almost all times.

“It goes back to our offense of having a five-out, four-out motion offense with not a ton of sets to rely on. We push the ball heavily and want to run in transition. We become better the more we play with each other, because it is such a read-and-react offense. But I think we were a difficult scout this year with not having a standout scorer and seeing we had 8-10 players who could score the ball. On the downside, it was hard to not have some of that consistency, though, and be able to say, ‘OK, so-and-so is going to give us 15 tonight.’ But again, there were a lot of advantages to sharing the ball a ton and having everyone have the possibility of scoring.”

Ruth Kempler had a solid year as a sophomore center for you, with 9.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 45 blocks. Certainly plenty of room to improve, but she seems like a player that could be in for a big year this coming season.

“We love her versatility. She’s continued to learn and grow and soak it all up. If she can continue to have improvements like she did from her freshman year to her sophomore year, we’re only going to get better because of that.”

We see geographical diversity on rosters across Division III basketball, but you have an especially interesting roster makeup. Arizona, North Carolina, Utah, Colorado, Georgia, Virginia, Kansas, California, and Alberta, Canada, are all featured on your roster, in several cases more than once. What is that unique dynamic of your program like?

“It is really fun to be a representation of basically the whole country, because we do have athletes from all regional areas. To be able to bring them together and get them on the same page of playing for the same purpose, even though their style of basketball may be different. Being able to combine their talents and bring it together to make it work as one effective team is a fun challenge for my staff and I.”

I know some of the unique geographical representation on the roster stems from Southern Virginia’s ties to the LDS Church, which attracts prospective students from across the country and in Canada as well. And I’m sure your high school and college coaching experience in Utah helped create some connections in the Western U.S too. Maybe talk a little more about the recruiting piece of all that, because I would imagine identifying talent from these different states thousands of miles from Southern Virginia isn’t always an easy task.

“Yes, my background, being in Utah and in the West, able to develop those relationships with club coaches and high school coaches [was key]. And then moving east, and being able to create those connections with coaches in the area has been really important and helped in our recruiting.

“Because of our unique situation, and being predominantly connected with Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have been able to have those athletes that are members of our church that know, ‘I can’t go play at BYU, but I love basketball and love to play,’ and they’ll reach out to us. What that does is it expands our recruiting network. Now we have club coaches from that area and high school coaches from that area, where we can continue to network and find those up-and-coming athletes that would be a good fit for our program. Our whole roster isn’t made up of LDS players, and I think it’s such a great mix.

“As we recruit, we talk about what our culture in our program is about. Yes, we believe in Jesus Christ, we believe in being disciples of Jesus Christ and sharing His Light with others in all that we do. And it’s so welcoming to have those athletes that say, ‘I can roll with that. I’m here for that. I want to be a part of that program,’ regardless of their religious affiliation. I think that is something that continues to unify our teams and our culture that we’re building on.”

You were one of those players that went cross-country (and across the U.S.-Canada border) to play at Southern Virginia, coming from Alberta, Canada in 2004. What did you take away from your experience as a student-athlete there, being part of that 2006 USCAA National Championship team and accomplishing so much during your four years?

“I loved my time at Southern Virginia. I loved playing for my coach and still keep in contact with him. Actually, the first conference championship we won, he was a coaching consultant for our team and ran our players through a lot of mental skills training. It’s really cool to, 15 years later, share another championship with him, just in different roles. And being able to understand where Southern Virginia has come from, the years I’ve played, and see the progress, with the transition to NCAA and the growth. It’s been really humbling and really exciting. To continue to be part of that is a blessing, and I’ve loved these experiences I’ve had over the last five years to help get Southern Virginia on the map a little bit, and help have it become a more familiar name in the D3 realm.”

The opportunity to return to your alma mater came after a really impressive run at Skyline High School from for six years, and then one year as an assistant at D2 Westminster (Utah). It has to be a difficult decision to make, considering SVU is a place with a lot of memories for you, but it also meant your family moving across the country. What all went into that move?

“Honestly, we were in a good spot with our careers and professions. We knew taking the job would be a life change for our kids. We had four kids, ages six and under, and lots of family around there. It was a comfortable lifestyle. But we prayed and made sure this was the right decision for us, and once we felt like this is what we wanted to do, there was no hesitation. We packed everything up and moved across the country and we don’t regret that decision at all. We’ve loved our time here.”

When it comes to your coaching story, was becoming a coach always your plan?

“Absolutely not, haha. I had no inclination of wanting to coach at all; I wanted to continuing playing. Basketball is in my blood. Once I graduated, I had an opportunity to go to Germany, go play in front of scouts, and try to play overseas. I ended up having an opportunity to play in Amsterdam, but I had gotten married going into my senior year, and it required me to be away from my husband for an extended period of time. It was a difficult decision, but I made the decision to not go and started focusing on being a physician’s assistant. I started working at a PT clinic in Utah and applying for PA school, thinking, ‘Okay, basketball is done now,’ as hard as that was. [But] one of the physician therapists working there had a daughter who needed a sophomore coach at her high school. But he was great and convinced me to try it, and so I did. The rest is history. I fell in love with the coaching aspect and thought, ‘I think I can see myself doing this for a long time.’”

Obviously there are some significant differences in high school coaching compared to college coaching, but in your experience, was there anything you took away from your time as a high school head coach that you’ve been able to apply now as a college head coach?

“I think one of the advantages of coaching at the high school level prior to being a college coach is that you learn to coach athletes who are not super skilled. You don’t get to pick who you want on your team, so to speak. Those that want to play, you give them those opportunities to try basketball, to learn and grow, and you learn how to coach athletes that aren’t all necessarily going to play in college. You learn to navigate tons of different emotions. You learn how to interact with parents from all different supportive and non-supportive standpoints. And you learn how to try to win when you have various levels of commitment from high school athletes. You have the girls doing this for fun, you have the kids who are doing it because their parents are making them, you have the kids who just love sports, and you have some who want to get a college scholarship. It’s a huge mix, and you do your best to be successful with what you have. To me, that takes a lot of skill and a high coaching IQ to take those athletes from all over to try to compete and win.”

Lastly, what is the level of excitement like for you all as you start glancing ahead towards next season? I know it’s still early, but with the performance your team had this past year, and returning so many, I would imagine there’s a lot of confidence inside the program right now.

“We graduated one senior, and everyone else from our core is returning. We’re very excited for them to continue to build off the confidence we gained this year and to have more maturity and the understanding of what is expected. It allows us to elevate our standards, and allows us to have those goals of going further in the NCAA Tournament. Every year as we continue to improve ourselves, we can add another goal closer to hopefully competing for a Final Four and national championship spot. With this core group coming back, it allows us to continue to elevate our standards and expectations and multiply the talent we have.”

Thank you to Coach Schroeder for taking the time to share her insight and talk about the exceptional program she continues to lead at Southern Virginia! You can learn more about her team and follow Southern Virginia women’s basketball online at knightathletics.com.

Want to see more of Riley Zayas’ D3 women’s basketball coverage? Visit d3wbbscoop.substack.com.