BRENTWOOD, Tenn. — Southeast Missouri State women’s basketball coach Rekha Patterson was named the 2019-20 Ohio Valley Conference women’s basketball Coach of the Year, and also coached two players onto the first-team All-OVC conference team.
Patterson, a native of Red Springs and the daughter of former Red Springs coach Eva Patterson-Heath, won her first OVC Coach of the Year award and only the third in program history. Ed Arnzen (1999) and John Ishee (2007) were the other SEMO coaches who claimed the honor.
In her fifth season, Patterson led the Redhawks to a 22-7 overall record and third-place finish with a 14-4 mark in OVC play. It was SEMO’s highest OVC finish since the 2007-08 season. The Redhawks achieved their success after being predicted to place sixth in the league’s preseason poll. Statistically, SEMO leads the OVC in scoring offense (73.1 ppg) and scoring margin (+10.5), while ranking third with a .328 three-point field goal percentage. The Redhawks make their fourth-straight OVC Tournament appearance this week and open postseason play against sixth-seeded Tennessee Tech in Evansville, Indiana on Thursday.
Patterson played at North Carolina A&T after graduating from Red Springs. She then starting her coaching career as a graduate assistant coach at Baylor from 2002-04, and spent a stint as an assistant at Baylor again from 2009-13, coaching the Bears to an undefeated season and a national title behind the play of Brittney Griner in 2012.
Before being hired on at Southeast Missouri State in 2015, she spent two seasons at Ball State as an associate head coach.
