Lexington is home to one of the most impressive streaks in college basketball
One of the most impressive streaks in college basketball is taking place just steps from downtown Lexington, at the corner of Broadway and Fourth Street and inside the Clive M. Beck Center on the campus of Transylvania University.
The NCAA Division III Pioneers women’s basketball team hasn’t lost a home conference game in nearly 1,500 days, a streak stretching back to Dec. 9, 2017.
Transylvania head coach Juli Fulks can still remember details from that most recent Transy home loss in Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference play against the Rose–Hulman Institute of Technology more than four years ago.
The defeat came just days after Transy unveiled its new bat logo and mascot to go along with the school’s Pioneers nickname. It was also the last home game before Christmas that season.
“I didn’t feel great about doing my job that day,” Fulks jokingly told the Herald-Leader during an interview inside her office at the Beck Center.
Since that loss, Transy women’s basketball has been nothing short of dominant.
No player on the current Transy roster has lost a home conference game and the Pioneers have won three straight HCAC Tournament titles, leading to NCAA Tournament trips in 2019 and 2020.
The 2021 NCAA Tournament was canceled at the Division III level.
“Our everyday level of expectations is very high. So even on the days that we don’t play well, or play as well as we can play, we need that level. Our baseline level needs to be better than everybody else,” Fulks said of Transy’s conference success. “That starts in practice. … It’s a teaching culture, a culture where they’re allowed to make mistakes, but they are expected to go very hard and want to get better.”
Fulks is now 161-37 overall and 96-15 in HCAC games as she coaches her eighth season at Transy. Previously, Fulks spent 10 years coaching the women’s basketball team at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore.
In Fulks’ first season at Transy in 2014-15, the Pioneers went 25-3 overall and a perfect 18-0 in HCAC play.
She also oversaw the best team in Transy history as the 2018-19 team reached the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 for the first time.
“I think we have (a) basketball X and O culture and then just (a) general team culture,” Fulks said of her tenure at Transy, which has featured an emphasis on rebounding at both ends of the court. “I don’t need our best player to shoot seven shots. I need to know what are the three shots you’re going to make at a really efficient level against the best teams in the country and we’ll design a system and get our players shots where they can score.”
Even in the context of the winning culture created by Fulks, this season’s Transy women’s basketball team is setting a new standard.
The Pioneers are 10-0 this season and 3-0 in HCAC games. It’s the best start to a season in the Fulks era.
And it’s a start that has featured a buzzer-beating win on the road at then-No. 7 Tufts University, seven victories by double-digit points and four wins by 30 points or more.
Tuesday afternoon’s win over Capital University — where Fulks played in college, reaching the 1997 NCAA Tournament Final Four — came by 40 points.
“I think everybody who comes (into the team) is hungry,” said senior guard Grace Shope, one of two seniors for the Pioneers. “Everybody wants to win and when you have everybody excited and wanting to win, it makes the chemistry and everything else fall in place.”
Transy is on the cusp of a pair of top-10 rankings in both the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association poll (where Transy is currently No. 6) and the D3Hoops.com Top 25 poll (where Transy is 11th).
“It sends a message,” said junior guard Madison Kellione of how Transy’s non-conference play can affect HCAC play. “We step on the court and (opponents) know our résumé and I think that is intimidating and I think it gives us an upper hand.”
Kellione, who hit the game-winning shot at Tufts as time expired, scored a career-high 33 points during Monday’s win over John Carroll University and leads Transy with an average of 18.2 points per contest.
She’s a former high school standout at Harrison County and was a 2019 Kentucky Miss Basketball finalist.
Eleven of the 15 players on the Transy roster are from Kentucky, ranging from Magoffin County (junior guard Kennedi Stacy) to a pair of players from Louisville (senior center Grace Bringard from Assumption and freshman guard Aubree Littlejohn from Sacred Heart).
Shope credited team bonding events like early season cookouts in the backyard of Fulks’ house with helping strengthen team chemistry during her Transy career.
“I think we’ve established such a family atmosphere, because we’re not just a team, we all love each other and that makes it easy,” Shope said.
Non-conference play has come and gone without a blemish for Transy this season. Next are the remaining 15 games of an 18-game conference schedule, followed by the HCAC Tournament and a potential return to the NCAA Tournament.
Transy’s impressive home winning streak against HCAC opponents will reach 1,488 days by the time the Pioneers host Earlham College on Jan. 5.
Fulks said she doesn’t talk to her players about the winning streak. Kellione and Shope said the players know about it, and care about keeping it alive.
“We talk about it,” Shope said. “We don’t lose at home. We say that every time we play at home.”
Emblazoned on a sign in Fulks’ office is a series of words that has become the Transy team motto: “Show up. Work hard. Adapt.”
“I think it’s just a mentality we set in practice,” Kellione said. “We have the same standards every day and if we don’t meet them we keep going until we meet those goals.”
Despite all the variables that could have affected on-court performance in recent years, the Pioneers have still done nothing but win.
Those involved intend to keep it that way.
“I have no pride in how we win. One more point on the board is all I’m looking for,” Fulks said. “So play big, play small, play fast, play slow. I do not care. I care that we have one more point.”
“Sometimes we play games and whatever Plan A and B and C were weren’t working,” Fulks continued. “We have a team and culture that is OK with going to Plan Z, whatever that is that night. Sometimes Plan Z’s look really insane.”
This story was originally published December 27, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
