On Monday, Marc Mitchell was introduced as Indiana State’s women’s basketball coach. As per the usual trappings involved with these ceremonies, Mitchell was presented with a No. 10 women’s basketball jersey, denoting the fact that he is the Sycamores’ 10th all-time leader of the program.
He used that fact to describe his feelings about coming to take over ISU’s program after his two-year stop at the University of Indianapolis.
New Indiana State women’s head basketball coach Marc Mitchell holds up a jersey with Indiana State Interim Director of Athletics Angie Lansing for a photo during a press conference introducing Mitchell on Monday at Hulman Center.
“I’m the 10th head coach here, so my level is 10 right now. I’m super excited,” Mitchell said after he was introduced to the public in an event in the Hulman Center atrium.
“I’ve coached Division I before in the MAAC at Saint Peter’s, so I know what major Division I is all about. This is a tremendous opportunity. I can’t wait to get to work,” Mitchell added.
Mitchell has plenty of work on his plate.
ISU had not had a winning season since 2015. The Sycamores have not had a winning percentage of .400 or better since 2017. ISU has reached nine conference wins just once since the program shared the Missouri Valley Conference championship in 2014 under former coach Teri Moren.
ISU was 11-21 in the 2024 season with six MVC victories. It was a year in which Chad Killinger left in December due to undisclosed medical reasons.
As the men’s program and baseball have demonstrated in wildly successful seasons in the last calendar year, enthusiasm is there if an ISU program does well enough to earn it.
Women’s basketball has proven it in the past as well. ISU was ranked in the top 40 nationally in attendance as recently as the early 2010s, peaking at a 4,151 average in 2010. Interest fell off through the 2010s and plummeted recently as the losses piled up. The Sycamores only averaged 1,307 fans in 2024.
With the sport growing its profile in a big way in recent years, building ISU into the winner it once was could potentially have bigger rewards than it ever had before. Mitchell is aware of this and hopes to bring the enthusiasm back to Hulman Center for the women’s game.
“I feel like it’s just really at the cusp and ready to make that elevation. It needs the right injection of energy and grit and I feel I’m the right person for that position. I have a lot of confidence in myself.
Part of getting fans is engaged is playing style. As Josh Schertz proved in his successful men’s basketball stint, entertainment goes hand-in-hand with winning when it comes to generating interest.
Mitchell, who won a Division III national championship at Fairleigh Dickinson-Florham with a perfect 33-0 mark in 2014, hopes his style is appealing to area fans.
New Indiana State women’s head basketball coach Marc Mitchell shakes hands with new men’s coach, Matt Graves, before a press conference introducing Mitchell on Monday at Hulman Center.
“Everything starts with defense. When I have my type of players in, we’re going to play up-tempo with defensive pressure, full court. We’re going to get into passing lanes to create havoc and chaos defensively. It’s a fast-paced, transition type of basketball we want to play,” Mitchell said.
Interim athletic director Angie Lansing believes Mitchell has what it takes to put ISU back in a position where it draws significant fan interest once more.
“I think it’s always going to be about community involvement and getting youth and fans into the facility. I think it’s about the competition and style of play. He is defensive-minded, but plays an up-tempo offense. It’s going to take winning and consistency,” Lansing said.
Mitchell’s track record suggests winning will come. Mitchell was 187-67 at FDU-Florham. At Saint Peter’s, he elevated the Peacocks from perennial losers (averaged 26 losses in eight prior seasons) to contender status in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, winning Coach of the Year honors in 2021.
In 2022, Mitchell made the unusual move of going from Division I to begin another reclamation project at the University of Indianapolis, a Division II school. In his first season in charge of the Greyhounds, Mitchell improved the win total by eight overall and by six in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
Mitchell is all business when it comes to going about his work.
“I don’t know anything else other than working hard. I don’t believe there’s any short cuts to success. So for the players that will be playing for us here, they’re going to know what hard work us. We’ll have some fun, but we’ll take care of business at-hand. It’s going to be intense and competitive,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell has the chance to remake the Sycamores. Mya Glanton and Kiley Bess, ISU’s top two scorers in 2024, both put themselves in the transfer portal. Glanton signed with Saint Louis.
Lansing confirmed that Mitchell will have a five-year contract. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Much as Schertz had “Kaizen” as his mantra during his men’s basketball tenure, Mitchell has his own credo he defines himself by.
“My saying, and you’ll hear me say this a million times, is ‘as one’. That’s something I say in all of my programs. It’s always about the team. It’s never about the individual,” Mitchell said.
