NORTHAMPTON — After walking through the ground-level door of Ainsworth Gymnasium, up a flight of stairs and through the first-floor doors, you’re immediately met with five trophies staring right back at you. The two on the end are NEWMAC championship trophies. The three in the middle? A pair of Division 3 Women’s Basketball Final Four trophies and a national-runner up one.

Continuing down the hallway of that floor and into the conference room, the Smith College basketball team – the program responsible for many of the trophies on display in Ainsworth – packed in to watch the NCAA Division 3 Women’s Basketball Selection Show on Monday afternoon. The Pioneers locked in their spot to the big dance following their fifth consecutive NEWMAC title on Sunday, so there was no sweating out an at-large bid. The trophy sat in the middle of the table surrounded by Smith’s 16 players.

It didn’t take much time for them to learn their first-round details, as the Pioneers were among the first group of teams shown in the field. Some claps and grins spread across the room for about 10 seconds in between bites of Herrell’s ice cream, but then the Smith players went right back to wearing their fierce, focused glares for the remainder of the bracket reveal.

Now that the group knew its opponent – SUNY Cobleskill – the Pioneers seemed eager to get straight to work.

“It’s a combination of excitement of what’s to come and knowing who you’re playing and what your path to a national championship looks like, mixed with the moment of just looking at your players and coaches and feeling that sense of pride to be a part of such a special group,” Smith head coach Lynn Hersey said. “It’s being in the moment while quickly already thinking about what’s to come.”

Smith will host SUNY Cobleskill on Friday night at 6:45 p.m. in Ainsworth. If the Pioneers win, they then have the possibility of matching up with a familiar foe in Amherst College, which plays Vassar in the first game of the doubleheader at 4:15 p.m. on Friday. The winners of Friday’s contests play at 6:45 p.m. on Saturday. Amherst failed to make the tournament last season despite a 19-6 record, but the Mammoths are back in the dance this time around.

Not to look too far ahead, but if the Pioneers make their way out of their pod, likely waiting would be another NESCAC school, Bowdoin – the top overall seed in the bracket boasting a 27-0 record. Smith defeated Bowdoin 52-47 in last year’s Elite Eight. Amherst fell to Bowdoin 58-49 in the NESCAC semifinal last Saturday.

“We know the NESCAC schools really well because we play five of them in the regular season, and obviously we watch a lot of film,” Hersey said. “They aren’t opponents out of our region that we’ve never seen play before… When you’re playing a neighboring school, there’s an additional layer of competitiveness and excitement. So we’ll bring that to our practices and our daily choices and continue to get ready the way we always get ready for any other game – but certainly understanding the fun of the possibility of some [Pioneer] Valley competition.”

Once the bracket was finalized, Hersey waltzed to the front of the room to deliver a speech. She talked about the attention to detail and precise preparation that it takes to make a deep run in the tournament. Smith has been to back-to-back Final Fours, including the 2024 national title game.

Hersey said that each player would be receiving liquid IVs and other equipment to ensure they are as healthy as possible, and told them they would be visiting head strength and conditioning coach Jake Turner twice a day. Smith drinks chocolate milk after games and gives players foods that help reduce cramping as well.

Any way the Pioneers can get a leg up on their competition, especially during March, Hersey is willing to give it a shot.

“There’s the mindset of [being ready to handle the pressure of a tournament game] and preparing your team for it, and then there’s getting their bodies as prepared as possible to compete at a high level for back-to-back 40-minute games,” Hersey said. “There are factors that I believe in that you have to pay attention to, and we’ve done that over my time here. We have a great staff that helps out with that stuff. There are inches everywhere, and it’s our job to try to collect as many inches as we can going into the games. The hydration and recovery is a really important part of that.”

The Smith head coach then asked her assistant coaches to say a few words, including graduate assistants Ally Yamada and Sofia Rosa – both of whom played monster roles in the Pioneers’ title run a year ago. When they finished, Hersey had one more topic to address.

She spoke directly to her veterans – graduate student Ally Landau, seniors Jane Loo and Jazmyn Washington and the other players who have experienced high-level winning at Smith – and urged them to build the foundation this week for the type of postseason the Pioneers are going to have. If they set the tone now, it’ll pay dividends later.

“Understanding the routine of an NCAA week, and handling the preparation as players physically and emotionally,” Hersey said when asked what she needs from her older group. “Being really intentional about our practices and how we talk to our teammates, filling each other up with the type of positive basketball talk that is really motivating and inspirational to each other. This is what we do. This is our routine. We’ve had success with it and I need them to make sure our culture is really strong this upcoming week.”