Susan Walvius

Walvius' team also ranked among the national leaders in blocked shots (third; 6.7 per game) and rebounding margin (fifth; 8.3 per game) and ranked among the top 30 teams nationally in scoring margin (16th; +12.2 points per game), field goal percentage (22nd; 45.0%) and scoring defense (26th; 56.8 points per game).

Susan Walvius (born October 24, 1964) is a businesswoman and entrepreneur.

She is the co-founder and current co-CEO of SHEEX, Inc., a bed linen company specializing in sheets and pillowcases constructed from advanced athletic-performance fabrics.

She is also a former head coach of the women's basketball team at the University of South Carolina.

An All-Metro Conference selection in 1986, Walvius was named All-America by Converse and Street & Smith's. She graduated in 1986 with a bachelor's degree in urban studies.

Walvius began her coaching career at Bradley University in 1986 as an assistant coach for two seasons.

After spending a year in private business, she returned to coaching as an assistant at the University of Rhode Island from 1989 to 1990 before becoming the youngest head coach in the nation at Virginia Commonwealth University in 1990.

Walvius' ability to rebuild a program was first evident during the five years she spent at the helm of VCU.

Only 25 years old when she was hired, Walvius coached at VCU from 1990 to 1995 and led the 1995 team to the Women's NIT after posting a 20–10 record.

That 20-win season was just the second in the history of the VCU program.

Walvius' effort did not go unnoticed as she was named the 1995 Virginia State Coach of the Year and was nominated for National Coach of the Year in District 3.

Leaving VCU in 1995, Walvius was the head coach at West Virginia University from 1995–1997.

In just her second season at WVU, Walvius led the 1996–97 squad to its first winning season in five years with a 19–12 record.

She displayed her ability as an outstanding recruiter by attracting a top-20 freshman class to West Virginia.

Walvius was hired on April 28, 1997, as the head women's basketball coach at the University of South Carolina.

Susan Walvius led South Carolina into the postseason in five of her 11 seasons at helm, including five of the last seven.

The 1998–99 freshman class was named as the 10th-best in the country, while the freshmen who entered Carolina in the fall of 1999 were named the 22nd-best group in the country.

Under Walvius, the Gamecocks emerged as one of the best defensive and rebounding teams in the Southeastern Conference the last two years.

Her best success came in the 2001 and 2002 seasons, where she went 25–7 and 23–8 respectively.

In those two seasons, the Gamecocks went 19–9 in Southeastern Conference play.

During the 2001–02 and 2002–03 seasons, Walvius posted a combined 48–15 mark with the Gamecocks and a 19–9 mark in the SEC. For her efforts, Walvius was honored as a finalist for Naismith Coach of the Year in each of those seasons.

The 2002 team made it to the Elite Eight for the first time in school history.

She took a floundering program to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments with an Elite Eight appearance in 2002, earning her SEC and WBCA District 3 Coach of the Year honors in just her fifth season on the job.

Over her 11 seasons, she amassed a 165–160 record, giving her an 18-year career mark of 263–261.

Walvius built the program's success with a series of nationally ranked recruiting classes.

Between 2003 and 2008, she signed four classes ranked among the nation's top 20, including a 2008 group that was as high as seventh by Blue Star Index in the early signing period.

In total, she attracted six top-25 recruiting classes to the South Carolina campus.

The 2003 class was ranked as the 10th-best class in the nation by All-Star Girls Report.

The Gamecocks set the school record for blocked shots and field goal percentage defense in 2004–05, then came back to break both of those records in addition to setting a new school mark for scoring defense in 2005–06.

Walvius' crew posted a nine-game improvement in 2005–06 from the year prior, a mark that led all Southeastern Conference schools and ranked as the fifth-largest improvement in any of the power conferences (SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, Big East).

A significant factor in the Gamecocks' improvement was suffocating defense, as Carolina led the SEC and ranked second nationally in field goal percentage defense, holding the opposition to 34.7 percent shooting.

In 2006–07, South Carolina led the SEC in blocked shots, rebounding margin and rebounds per game and ranked second in the league in field goal percentage defense and steals.

With Walvius stalking the sidelines, Carolina turned the Colonial Center into a difficult place for opponents to play in 2006–07, compiling a 15–5 record at home that included an 80–48 pounding of in-state rival Clemson, a 95–35 wipeout of SEC foe Alabama and an 81–40 second-round Women's NIT victory over America East Conference champion Hartford.

In fact, the Gamecocks outscored the opposition by an average margin of just under 22 points per game in home games played during the 2006–07 campaign en route to matching a school record total for home victories.

The 2007–08 class was tabbed as the No. 18 group in the nation by The Collegiate Girls Basketball Report, and Blue Star Index rated the 2005–06 class as the 13th-best in the country.

In 2007–08, the Gamecocks were among the league's top five in all but one of those defensive categories as well.

On April 14, 2008, Walvius announced her resignation from South Carolina.

Walvius attended Gar-Field Senior High School in Virginia, prior to attending Virginia Tech, where she was an all-American basketball player.

As a player at Virginia Tech, Walvius established herself as one of the most successful players to wear a Hokie uniform.

The four-year letterwinner was named to Virginia Tech's All-Decade team, is the school leader in career blocked shots and ranks second in field goals made and third in scoring and rebounds.