Men’s and Women’s Basketball played their final games of the regular season.

With both teams featuring new coaches, Juli Fulks for the women’s team and Cornelius Jackson for the men’s, it was a year of unknowns for both of Marshall’s teams.

Fulks was named the 2024 WBCA DIII Coach of the Year and joined Marshall as the head coach with over 400 career victories in 20 seasons, winning the 2023 NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball National Championship, while Jackson spent the 2017-18 through the 2022-23 season as an assistant coach for former head coach Dan D’antoni. He was named associate head coach prior to the 2023-24 season and was named the head coach for the men’s team prior to the start of the season.

In the Sun Belt preseason polls, the women’s team was ranked sixth, and the men’s team ranked 10th. 

The women’s team finished with an 11-19 overall record and 6-12 conference record, with momentum picking up for the team in the final weeks of the season, with the team winning four out of their last six games. However, the team did lose its final game of the season 70-68 to Georgia State on Friday, Feb. 28.

“We had just played them last week, and I felt like we came in with a really good plan,” Fulks said. “On offense, we had a lot of possessions that led to turnovers, and that was really frustrating because we were shooting the ball so well. The pressure in the back court speeds you up a little bit, and I thought we’d been doing a really good job with that and slowing down in the mid-court if we didn’t have an advantage. We did that, but we just had so many turnovers.”

After the game, the Sun Belt Conference announced for its 2025 Women’s Basketball Postseason Awards that Aislynn Hayes was awarded All-Sun Belt 1st Team Honors, and CC Mays was awarded All-Sun Belt 3rd Team Honors. 

Hayes was awarded SBC Women’s Basketball Player of the Week twice during the season and finished the regular season as the SBC’s leading scorer, averaging 17.4 points per game. She also reached double-digit points in 25 of the 29 games she has played in this season, featuring a career-best 31-point performance against the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes back on Nov. 23 this season. 

Mays had a career season, scoring a single season-best 366 points, with 50 three-pointers made and 57 assists. She has reached double figures in 17 games this season. In Sun Belt Conference play, Mays finished seventh in points per game, averaging 14.3. Mays averaged nearly two steals a game.

Heading into the SBC Championship tournament currently ranked as the No. 11 seed, Marshall played against the No. 14 South Alabama Jaguars.

The men’s team finished with a 19-12 overall record and 12-6 conference record with the team also picking up steam in the final weeks of the season going on a four-game win streak. It won nine out of its last 12 to finish the season, featuring a strong final game against the App State, winning 75-57.

“That was an awesome game,” Jackson said. “I thought our guys came out with energy; the fans had energy, and I was happy to see a big crowd help send these guys out the right way.”

During the SBC postseason awards, Marshall’s Obinna Anochili-Killen was named the Sun Belt Conference Defensive Player of the Year and All-Sun Belt Second Team honors. Anochili-Killen led the SBC and also ranked second in the nation with 90 blocks, with 70 of them from conference games. 

Another honor for the Herd was given to Jackson after he was named a finalist for the Joe B. Hall Award, an award presented annually to the top first-time head coach in Division I Men’s College Basketball.

Marshall Men’s Basketball earned the No. 5 seed and earned a triple-bye into the fourth round of the tournament where they will play an opponent to be determined at 6 p.m. on Friday.

Nate Harrah can be contacted at [email protected]