Rigby becomes all-time wins leader

Brady Fitch photo

Coach Chanda Rigby poses with family, friends and players after the game that placed her at the top.

In their home locker room after the game against Louisiana, Troy women’s basketball celebrates a little harder than usual.

Why?

Because Coach Chanda Rigby did what she’s now known to do: win.

With the 71-55 win over Louisiana at home Thursday night, Coach Rigby moved into the number one spot for most wins as a Troy women’s basketball coach. Not in Troy’s D1 history, not in recent history, not in a certain number of games.

The number one spot. Ever.

“They made it pretty big here in Trojan Arena tonight,” said Coach Rigby after the win. “I mean, they started talking about I was going to break some record, I was like, ‘What is this?’

“We stay so involved in winning the next game, but they really made it special for me here tonight. I can’t thank our administration enough for taking the time to honor this accomplishment.”

The win marked Rigby’s 275th win as the head of the Trojans, pushing her past the great Joyce Sorrell and establishing herself as Troy’s winningest women’s basketball coach. How did it start for the Louisiana native, though? How did she get here?

Franklinton, Louisiana, boasts a population of about 3000 people, the parish seat of Washington Parish. The Wikipedia page only lists 10 notable people from the town; three are professional football players, and two are political scientists.

One is a head college basketball coach.

Rigby rose through the ranks, starting at the high school level in Mississippi before coming back home to Louisiana to coach Loranger High School in Loranger, Louisiana. At the turn of the century, Rigby made her way to the college ranks, taking the job at NAIA Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas.

One year in Hillsboro was all she’d need before heading to the JUCO level, taking the job at Holmes Community College in Goodman, Mississippi. In four years, Rigby turned the program around, from a 10-11-2 record in her first year to a 19-7 record and an NJCAA first-round tournament appearance in her final season.

From there, it was onto seven seasons at fellow JUCO, Pensacola State College. The transformation at PSC was even more impressive than Holmes, with Rigby turning the Lady Pirates from 1-11 in conference her first season to 12-0 in conference her last two seasons.

Even more impressive was a 35-1 overall record in the 2010-11 season, with the one loss coming in the final four of the NJCAA championships. Rigby followed that season up with a 32-6 record and a third-place finish in the NJCAA championships.

Her next career shift brought her to southeast Alabama and Troy University.

It was a rough first season at the helm of the cardinal and black for Rigby, only winning three conference games. Still, there were glimpses of what Troy would become under the then new coach. One of those was just a nine-point loss to Alabama in Troy.

The turnaround at Troy wouldn’t take long. Three seasons later, Rigby captured her first Sun Belt Conference Championship.

In her fourth season as head coach, Rigby would knock off Little Rock to lock the Trojans into the 2016 NCAA tournament. The next season, she proved it wasn’t a fluke and won the conference tournament again, this time beating Louisiana.

“The first two [championships] happened so fast,” said Neil Harrow, current head women’s basketball coach at Long Island University, who was on the Troy staff for the two championships, “I didn’t even understand how hard it was, we just did it and it was awesome.”

That 2016-17 season wasn’t the last time Rigby would go back-to-back as she led the Trojans to three consecutive first place finishes in conference from 2019 to 2022, including another NCAA tournament berth in 20-21.

“Once we didn’t win again for two years and then won one again,” continued Harrow, who stayed on staff for the next three championships, “It happened at a speed that I could understand how hard it was and how amazing what we were doing as it was happening. That was really cool.”

In her time at Troy, Rigby has guided the Trojans to four wins over SEC schools, bringing Troy to five wins over the conference overall. She captured two of those wins in back-to-back seasons in 2024-25 and 2025-26.

Rigby also snagged a win against longtime SEC rival Mississippi State in 2021-22 when her Trojans knocked off the Bulldogs 73-66 in Starkville. Her earliest SEC win, though, came in 2018-19 at the other Mississippi school, Ole Miss, winning 71-54.

Rigby’s coaching tree may be as impressive as her coaching record, as three former assistants under Rigby have taken head coaching jobs at Division-1 schools, with a fourth being an assistant coach at an SEC school.

"I want to thank [her] for giving me my first coaching opportunity,” said coach Chelsea Dungee-Artberry, the current assistant coach of player development and recruiting at Alabama. “[She’s] such a great mom, leader, coach; the many lessons I learned from [her] I’ll take throughout my career.”

In addition to Coach Dungee-Artberry and Coach Harrow, former Rigby assistant Courtney Simmons now coaches at Grambling State, while former assistant Kayla Ard went on to be an assistant at Clemson before coaching at Utah State from 2020-24.

All 275 wins came with Coach Jennifer Graf, one of her former high school players, at her side. Graf has served on Rigby’s staff since her hire in the 2012-13 season, helping turn Troy into the force it has become in the Sun Belt.

“[Graf] was a division one coach,” said Coach Rigby, “She kind of gave me the credibility to come here [to Troy] and take this job.

“She came with me, and all 275 wins she’s been a part of.”

The win against Louisiana moves Rigby to 18-9 overall against the Ragin’ Cajuns. Rigby has never held a losing record against the school in Lafayette. She’s also led her Trojan team to two separate four-game win streaks against Louisiana.

It’s only fitting the record-breaking win for Rigby came against her home state school, which sits just two and a half hours away from her hometown of Franklinton.

A storybook way to cement herself at the top of Troy women’s basketball history books.