SoCon announces women’s basketball league schedule

SPARTANBURG, S.C.– The Southern Conference announced its 2024-25 women’s basketball league schedule Wednesday afternoon. The SoCon’s eight women’s basketball teams will all play double-round-robin, 14-game intraleague schedules, totaling 56 league contests. Conference play begins on Thursday, Jan. 9, with all ETSU, UNCG, Chattanooga, and Western Carolina in action. The other four teams will begin conference play on Saturday, Jan. 11.

In total, 24 conference games take place in January and 28 contests in February. All conference matchups are set for Thursday and Saturday. The regular season concludes with four conference showdowns on Saturday, March 1. 

Three teams welcome new coaches this season, which are Mercer, Chattanooga, and Western Carolina.

Mercer’s Michelle Clark-Hear will begin her first season as head coach for the Bears. She served in a hybrid role of both Assistant Coach and Assistant Athletic Director for Women’s Basketball at Mississippi State last season. Prior to that she was the head coach at Cincinnati from 2018-23, amassing 74 wins.

Deandra Schirmer takes the helm at Chattanooga after spending the 2019-2024 at Valdosta State as the head coach. While at Valdosta State, Shirmer produced an 86-19 record in the Gulf South Conference and a 114-31 overall record. Under her leadership, the team made four consecutive NCAA appearances, advancing to the Elite Eight in 2022.

Western Carolina’s Jonathan Tsipis takes over the program after spending the last two seasons as an Advisor for Scouting and Analytics at Marquette. Previously, Tsipis spent five seasons as head coach at Wisconsin (2016-21) after a run at George Washington that included two NCAA appearances and a 92-38 record (2012-16).

The Ingles Southern Conference Basketball Championship will be held March 6-9 at Harrah’s Cherokee Center – Asheville in Asheville, North Carolina. 

Chattanooga won the regular-season title in 2023-24, the 23rd in school history, then won the SoCon Tournament crown with a 69-60 win over the Spartans. 

Full broadcast schedules will be announced later, but all eight schools’ home games will air on ESPN+ if not selected for national or regional broadcast. 

The 42nd season of Southern Conference women’s basketball opens Monday, Nov.4.  

For the composite league schedule, visit SoConSports.com. The full composite schedule will be posted when it has been completed.