Derek Schultz: Brady’s breakthrough

Ball State head women’s basketball coach Brady Sallee knows the question is coming once the calendar turns to March.

As of this writing, the Cardinals are entering the final week of the regular season sporting a 25-4 record. For the eighth time in a dozen years under Sallee, Ball State has eclipsed the 20-win mark and is cruising toward its ninth postseason appearance. Sallee’s 234 wins in Muncie are by far the most in Ball State basketball history, men included.

Scanning through the stellar resume of his 20-year head coaching career, there is just one thing missing—a trip to the NCAA Tournament. Which leads to the annual question for Brady Sallee:

Is this the year?

“It’s clearly the elephant in the room, and there’s no one who asks himself that question more than me,” Sallee said. “But I don’t worry about it because I trust our process.”

That process has yielded consistent results for Sallee and Ball State over his 30 years as a Division I college basketball coach. Fifteen winning campaigns in his last 16 seasons, including 10 WNIT appearances, validates the process, but his quest for that elusive March Madness berth continues—a chase that began several decades ago.

Bluegrass to BSU

Growing up in hoops-crazed Lexington, Kentucky, it’s not surprising that Sallee ended up becoming a basketball lifer, even if his path was a bit unorthodox. He had dreams of becoming the next Kyle Macy at UK but ultimately ended up at nearby Thomas More University to play baseball instead.

After exhausting his athletic eligibility, he found himself three classes short of graduation. To remedy the situation, Sallee was offered a spot with the Saints’ women’s basketball staff in exchange for a promise to take care of his few remaining credits.

“I thought I’d go sweep the floors, keep some stats, and whatever else, but I jumped in with two feet,” Sallee said. “Next thing you know, I’m 22 years old, and I’m out recruiting, compiling scouting reports, meeting other coaches and doing the whole bit.”

Those relationships on the road ended up opening more doors for Sallee a short time later as then-Kentucky assistant (and current Los Angeles Sparks Vice President of Basketball Operations) Ilene Hauser recommended him to a former colleague for an open assistant coaching gig at Idaho State. Loading up a U-Haul for Pocatello, Idaho, a place Sallee admits he had never heard of before accepting the job, it was clear the women’s basketball bug had officially taken its bite.

“I never really got into it thinking career—I dove into it thinking process,” Sallee said. “I told myself I have to work as hard as I can and get the best players I can so my boss will be happy. I didn’t think about becoming a head coach.”

The vision of running his own program started to crystalize after successful assistant stints at Kent State (1996-2002) and East Carolina (2002-2003), and Sallee was finally given a head coaching opportunity at Eastern Illinois in 2004. There, taking over a moribund program that had gone 109-243 in the 13 seasons before his arrival, Sallee turned the Panthers into Ohio Valley Conference champions in 2010 while leading EIU to three straight postseason appearances. He parlayed that success into earning his current gig at Ball State. All in all, he’s won 370 games and produced dozens of all-conference players, plus 15 who have gone on to play professional basketball, and nine 1,000-point scorers at Ball State alone.

This year’s Cardinals are just two wins away from becoming the winningest team Sallee has ever coached. Half of their four losses came to blueblood behemoths UConn and Notre Dame. Bowling Green transfer Nyla Hampton has anchored Ball State’s stingy defense—a unit Sallee calls perhaps the most disruptive he’s ever coached—and the pick-your-poison offense has six players averaging from 7 to 13 points, led by former Brownsburg star and All-MAC performer Ally Becki, who hit the game-winner in the final seconds of Ball State’s thrilling 52-51 win over Georgia in December.

“I don’t know that we’ve ever had a group collectively buy in like this group does,” Sallee said. “They are as unselfish when it comes to numbers as any group I’ve ever coached.”

“We don’t care who gets a shot—we care about what kind of shot we get. We feel like we’ve got a bunch of players that can make that shot when it’s their moment, and we’ve seen it play out.”

Familiar territory

This group finds itself in a predicament similar to those of the teams that came before it, though, as it sits firmly in second place entering the season’s final week. Ball State has finished second in its division and/or the conference standings seven times in Sallee’s tenure. Dating back to his days at Eastern Illinois, his teams have also finished as runner-up in the conference tournament four times, most recently falling four points short in a MAC Championship Game loss to Buffalo in 2022.

The automatic bid is likely Ball State’s only path to an NCAA Tournament breakthrough. Because of its current second-place standing, Ball State is not listed in ESPN’s latest Bracketology projection, which is compiled by women’s basketball analyst Charlie Cremer. Mid-American Conference leader Toledo, whom the Cardinals split two games with this season, appears as the automatic qualifier instead. Even with its gaudy record, Ball State’s cut-line metrics (76th in NET) and lack of a true standout victory (no Quad 1 wins) probably means it’s MAC Tournament or Bust for the team’s March hopes next week.

And that “always the bridesmaid, never the bride” saying continues to shadow Sallee’s program, which is why the inevitable question will pop up again this week.

“I’d be lying to you if, during the summer, I’m not sitting out by the pool, drinking coffee and thinking, ‘Geez, what’s wrong with me?’” Sallee admitted. “But there’s way more important things to what we’re doing every single day than a committee of 12 people waving a wand and telling me I’m worthy to be in their tournament.

“It’s something that I desperately want to do, but it won’t define me.”

What continues to define Sallee, his players and his program is the process, which has produced another terrific group of women and another successful season in a tenure full of them. Even if it doesn’t come this March, Sallee believes that blueprint will eventually lead to the result Ball State deserves. “If [making the NCAA Tournament is] supposed to happen with this group, [the streak of being left out] will end, and if it’s supposed to be another group, it will then.

“I’m a firm believer that our stories have already been written,” Sallee said. “Our job is to put everything we have into the present and what we’re doing now. It’s the only way we run our program.”•

__________

From Peyton Manning’s peak with the Colts to the Pacers’ most recent roster makeover, Schultz has talked about it all as a sports personality in Indianapolis for more than 15 years. Besides his written work with IBJ, he’s active in podcasting and show hosting. You can follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @Schultz975.