First-year Marshall women’s basketball coach Kim Caldwell has experience in the NCAA Tournament from her time at Division II Glenville State.

In seven seasons as head coach of the Pioneers, Caldwell led Glenville to as many NCAA Tournament berths, including a National Championship in 2022 and a Final Four appearance the following season.

So as the Thundering Herd prepare for its first NCAA Tournament contest in 27 years come 3:30 p.m. Friday at No. 4 Virginia Tech, Caldwell has reminisced some on her days with the Pioneers, albeit during the earlier part of her seven-season tenure. In Caldwell’s first year as head coach at Glenville, the Pioneers won 24 games to qualify for the NCAA Tournament, before suffering an 88-86 loss at top seed California (Pa.).

Come Friday, when No. 13 Marshall (26-6) faces the Hokies (24-7) at Cassell Coliseum, it’ll be a true road game where Caldwell’s team is unquestionably again an underdog.

“You try to tie it in and you have to think back to the early years,” Caldwell said Wednesday before Marshall left for Blacksburg. “We talked about it a little bit yesterday when I first started coaching and we made the NCAA Tournament, we were just happy to be there. Then we lost our first-round game by two points, and as a coach, you go back and think, well maybe if we weren’t just happy to be there, we could’ve made a run. Maybe if we would’ve prepared a little harder, had a little more sense of urgency and believed that we could’ve won, maybe we would’ve won.