JACKSON, Miss. — Behind head coach Margaret Richards’ desk in her office sits three silver trophies for the Jackson State women’s basketball program’s most recent Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament championships in 2021, 2022 and 2024. In front of Richards lies a neatly stacked set of papers, a handful of snacks, and a dry-erase board filled with basketball sets and film study notes of what her players need to improve on the court.
The trophies represent the standard for JSU women’s basketball, an expectation Richards knew well before May 6 when she walked into Lee E. Williams Athletic and Assembly Center as the Tigers’ head coach for the first time. As Jackson State (14-13, 12-4 SWAC) prepares to face Arkansas Pine-Bluff on Thursday and in-state rival Mississippi Valley State (5-22, 4-12 SWAC) on Saturday in its regular-season finale, the Tigers sit a half game behind Texas Southern for third place and two games behind Southern for first place in the conference.
When she succeeded four-time SWAC Coach of the Year Tomekia Reed, Richards took charge of a program that under Reed had won five consecutive SWAC regular-season titles, earned three women’s NCAA tournament appearances in the last four years, seen two players drafted into the WNBA and compiled a 125-54 record in six seasons.
“I was asked that question [about coaching after Reed] every time somebody spoke to me,” Richards told Andscape. “I knew the assignment [at Jackson State] was going to be challenging. But we’re a different team. We were going to play in our style, try to win every game, play with passion, represent the name on the front of their jersey and let the outcome take care of itself. That’s all I asked for.”
Throughout the season, the Louisville, Kentucky, native has leaned on her patience, her ability to connect with players and her work ethic — something she gleaned from her mentors and disciplinarian mother — to silence critics’ doubts in her ability to lead the program.
Aron Smith / Jackson State University Communications
Richards didn’t have the ideal timetable to her genesis as JSU’s seventh women’s basketball coach.
Three days after the conclusion of the 2024 SWAC basketball tournament, she resigned as Alabama A&M’s head coach following eight seasons leading the program.
On April 10, more than three weeks after stepping down at Alabama A&M, she was hired as an assistant at Mercer University in Georgia under longtime mentor and first-year head coach Michelle Clark-Heard, who had coached Richards briefly at Nebraska as a Cornhuskers assistant and then hired her as an assistant during head coaching tenures at Kentucky State and Western Kentucky. However, when Jackson State athletic director Ashley Robinson offered Richards the job at JSU, it was an opportunity she couldn’t refuse.
JSU named Richards as head coach on May 1, the same day as the women’s basketball closure window for the transfer portal, leaving many to question the talent pool of players she would bring into the program.
Luckily for Richards, she had strong Southern connections from her previous head coaching stops at Alabama A&M and Division II St. Augustine’s as well as prior assistant roles at Louisville, North Texas, Western Kentucky and Clemson. With her recruiting skills, along with the help of her staff, she assembled 14 new players from all areas of the country with varied levels of collegiate playing experience as well as two international players from Canada and Kenya.
However, with a completely retooled roster comes growing pains, learning curves and the willingness to adjust to change.
“It was like a tug of war with them in the beginning,” Richards said. “Getting new identities to buy into the game plan … to stay on track and see the light at the end of the tunnel, it was a challenge.”
Leianya Massenat, one of JSU’s graduate transfers and the team’s second-leading scorer (9.8 ppg), concurs.
“With all of us coming from separate places and being top players at our old schools, we had to figure out how to work together,” Massenat said.
Richards knew the assignment would require discipline and endurance. She was ready for the moment based on the lessons and structure she learned from growing up in the projects with her mother — who cleaned after and provided care for elderly citizens in a nursing home for nearly 30 years — as well as from her childhood mentor, Norman Martin, and two older brothers.
“All I saw my mom do was work really hard,” Richards said. “When I wasn’t playing sports, I always had a curfew and rules to follow. I had no choice but to have a strong work ethic. There were no excuses. … With my brothers around, it was like I had two fathers giving me tough love. If they weren’t around, I had to fight. … I told my players the same thing: ‘You might not like the things that I’m telling you to do [on the court] now, but I see something in you that you don’t see in yourself.’”
Richards began playing basketball at age 11. But it was Martin, the director of the Boys and Girls Club at a local community center, who spearheaded her basketball career. Martin started the AAU team that Richards played for as a kid, influenced where she played high school basketball and put Richards in position to play college basketball at Nebraska.
“He showed us [me and my teammates] the world through basketball,” Richards said. “I considered myself a good athlete, but he pushed me and made me think bigger.”
Years later, the younger Richards who grew up using basketball as a way to see beyond her environment is paying it forward, helping other young women become the best versions of themselves both on and off the court.
“She’s going to push you to be great,” said senior center Jakiylah Esco, who served as the Tigers’ team manager last season and sat out a year after playing basketball at Xavier University of Louisiana. “There are times where I’ve been hesitant in my play, but my confidence has grown under her leadership.”
Under Richards, the Tigers run an uptempo style offense while often switching between man and zone defenses. Richards tailors her coaching philosophy around defending, getting to the free throw line and rebounding.
Offensively, Jackson State is 10th in the SWAC in scoring offense (58.6), eighth in field goal percentage (36.7%), second in three-point shooting percentage (30.7%) and first in free throw percentage (71.7%) while ranking in the bottom two in offensive rebounds (10.8) and assists (10.04) per game.
Defensively, the Tigers are among the top four in the conference in scoring defense (64.3 ppg) and opponent field goal percentage (39.5%) while ranking third in defensive rebounds (24.6) and fifth in blocked shots (3.0) per contest.
As the players built continuity with each other, it came at the price of a rigorous non-conference schedule, one that included 11 consecutive road or neutral site games and a portion of the season where JSU finished 3-9 with seven losses by 25 or more points. However, the players believe that portion of the season, which included Richards’ squad earning a win against Mercer and her mentor Clark-Heard — prepared the team for where it is now, sitting in a position to compete for a SWAC tournament title.
“It was a lot to handle … planes delayed, stuck in the airport for 10-plus hours, bus issues, losing games, but we made it through on the other side,” said forward Zoe Cooper, the Tigers’ other grad transfer who sits fourth in the SWAC in total minutes played per game.
Junior point guard Jaileyah Cotton, whom Richards considers the team’s leader on the floor, said that stretch of games built the team’s character.
“It brought us together as a team and taught us how to lose and win. … Shots might not fall, but we can always rely on defense, effort and rebounding to impact the game,” Cotton said.
Richards, a former point guard, holds her floor generals to a higher standard on the court. She holds weekly meetings with them, giving them a series of questions to “open their minds” and to see their level of accountability, responsibility and impact on the court. While the meetings have not always been easy, Cotton said they have helped her become a better leader.
Jackson State won 11 of its first 13 conference games before losing back-to-back games to Alcorn State and Prairie View in the final week of February. However, the Tigers bounced back with a 63-60 victory on March 1 against Texas Southern in their final home game of the season.
Senior guard Taleah Dilworth, the SWAC’s leading scorer (16.1 ppg), said the losses are only extended lessons and par for the course for where her and her teammates want to be later this month.
“This team really feels like a family,” Dilworth said. “As long as we continue to believe in ourselves and motivate each other, we will be successful.”
Richards hopes the lessons in non-conference play and the challenges of leading and bringing this team together in her first season will aid the Tigers in their quest to add another silver trophy in her office.
“Everybody couldn’t wait to see what type of team we had,” Richards said. “It’s been a tough road. We have fun after games we win because there were a lot of losses in the preseason. We had to endure them together. … I know we [recently] dropped two games, but I want fans to continue to believe in us as we continue to work and do some good things. … Our time is coming.”