STATESBORO - Georgia Southern head women's basketball coach Hana Haden completed her first season at the helm of the Eagles in 2024-25, leading the team to two Sun Belt Conference tournament wins for the first time in program history in Pensacola.

The Eagles also experienced several other highs during Coach Haden's first season, which included opening up a brand new facility in the Jack and Ruth Ann Hill Convocation Center. Coach Haden's 16 wins were also the most for a first-year women's basketball head coach at Georgia Southern since 1996. 

We sat down with Coach Haden to revisit her first season in Statesboro and also look ahead to the upcoming second year of Georgia Southern women's basketball!

Every first year for a head coach is a learning process. Describe what you learned about yourself and your players in your first season at Georgia Southern.

"I think we learned a lot about resiliency throughout this season. Just really embracing and trusting the process even when we weren't getting the results we wanted right away. I think we all had to learn that there's no immediate gratification, because even when there were times that we were taking big steps forward, we weren't seeing the results that we wanted. I think the value of staying the course, and then seeing that come to fruition late in the year. I think we also learned the value of conference play, especially if the current bracket is going to stay in use - that it's very important to establish your identity and consistency in the non-conference portion because whenever you get to conference play, you don't have time to be figuring things out. This past year, continuing to figure things out in the first half of conference play put us in such a huge hole as far as seeding for the Sun Belt tournament."

Many times throughout the season, you insisted that the Eagles would be playing their best basketball at the end of the year. Winning 7 of the last 11, including two in the tournament, proved that.  How did that come about?

"The resiliency of our team, in being able to stay the course. I also think we finally all got on one page and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to accomplish that. Everyone having the same agenda. I think we had that belief that we would play better basketball, even when it seemed like we were running out of time, we held on to that belief that it's not over until it's over and we saw the opportunities in front of us and we saw the senior leadership between Nicole Gwynn, Leah Johnson and Indya Green to be able to stay the course. You can't wait until things start going your way, you have to influence that with your approach every day and then going out and taking advantage of those opportunities. You have to prioritize winning plays and team basketball. On the floor, the biggest thing was taking better care of the basketball. [The Eagles were 9-4 down the stretch when committing 16 or fewer turnovers]. That was a huge reason for the late success."

What were some of your proudest moments of the first season at Georgia Southern?

"Definitely the way we competed in the tournament. The way we came together after times where it seemed like it wasn't going to click. I have to say the progression of Nicole Gwynn, really proud for her and the way she stuck with it after the player she's been over her whole career, coming in and having a slump like nothing I've ever seen in my coaching career - as bad as it was and how long it lasted, it was tough. She would come to me and ask "what if I never get out of this?" Well, we can't accept that, we just have to keep working, and she did work herself out of it. [Gwynn shot 19.7% from three-point range in non-conference games and 41.7% in conference games] Also, the game winner for Liv against App State here at home, it couldn't have happened to a better person. That galvanized the team. Especially to win at the buzzer, after we had just lost at the buzzer at ODU in our last game, that was a proud moment too. To see the team come together, fight back from being 14 points down, pretty much utilizing the bench - where a lack of depth and not being able to score had been an issue throughout the year, that game proved to our team that we were playing our best basketball. Huge part of us then going down to Pensacola and winning two games."

Describe what it was like to open a new facility in your first season, and what do you think The Hill will do to help elevate Georgia Southern women's basketball.

"Really exciting to be involved in that part of history, closing out Hanner and opening up The Hill. It's a huge recruiting tool to sell being able to play in a brand new facility and I can just - one of our priorities for our program this offseason, we've talked to our returning players about the responsibility to build onto this program. Campus and community service and engagement is one of the top three priorities right now, and I share that to say that we want to be able to get out, get more visibility and get people engaged so we can fill this beautiful facility and see more people in here supporting these young women and this program. From a recruiting standpoint, from a student-athlete experience standpoint, and from a crowd perspective we're really excited about The Hill and what year two will bring."

What are your expectations for year two with Georgia Southern women's basketball?

"Right now, the priority is to build the program from a foundational standpoint with our culture. A lot of that is recruiting, of course - this week is the first week of "Portal Kombat" as [assistant coach] Coach Dex called it and a lot of people are calling it that on Twitter. So adding the right pieces that want to be a part of building this program. We met with the returners and told them, we're the ones who are here in year two, so it's our responsibility to build the program. We want to cultivate a sisterhood and we want players that want to embrace that. We're sitting at home right now watching all of these teams play in the postseason, postseason has to be a non-negotiable for us, we want to be playing in the postseason in year two. We think 20 wins was the baseline of what would have been acceptable this year, we felt like that we left more than four games on the table this year. You never want to give a goal of just 20 wins because if you're capable of more, we just think our coaches have to do a good job in recruiting the roster, then we've got to do a great job this summer of embracing and implementing our team vision.

"Our team vision is: Georgia Southern women's basketball will cultivate a sisterhood and pursue the best versions of ourselves on and off the floor. We will compete for championships, engage with the community and show pride for our program and in Georgia Southern.

"Now we just need to embody the vision and approach every day with a great attitude and great effort. Every player we're recruiting, we're talking about this vision. I think it's simple, but it's not easy. It starts with our four returners, and everyone we add will be bought into that."