UMBC Women's Basketball Associate Head Coach TJ Royals has been selected to participate in the prestigious 2023 TopConnect Basketball Symposium taking place at the Courtyard Orlando Lake Buena Vista in the Marriott Village, Orlando, Florida on Monday, June 12 presented by Teamworks and INFLCR.

TopConnect (formerly Villa 7), originated in 2003 by then VCU Athletic Director Dr. Richard Sander, identifies the top assistant basketball coaches in the country and connects them with mid-major Athletic Directors providing tremendous networking and leadership development opportunities for both parties.

Royals, who just finished up his fourth season at UMBC, guided the Retrievers to the top-ranked offense in the America East. UMBC not only had the top-ranked overall offense, but also was the highest-scoring team in Conference play, averaging 66.8 points per AE game (4.6 ppg ahead of second place). 

Prior to joining the UMBC Retrievers staff, Royals spent five seasons as an assistant coach at Texas Southern University where he, along with Hayes, helped coach the Tigers to their first NCAA appearance in program history in 2017. Royals also helped TSU to three Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Regular Season Championships in five seasons. Royals also helped coach Joyce Kennerson, the 2018 SWAC Player of the Year and just the third TSU player to break the 1,500-point mark in her career.

In its sixth year, TopConnect develops educational programming that allows these top assistant coaches to hear from a wide variety of successful leaders and speakers. The 2023 symposium is headlined by a panel of prominent, successful, and new head coaches in Brenda "Mock" Brown, Head Women's Basketball Coach at East Tennessee State University: Brooks Savage, Head Men's Basketball Coach at East Tennessee State University, Kevin Kuwik, Head Men's Basketball Coach at West Point and Jordan Mincy, Jacksonville University.  

Athletic Directors presenting include, Mark Wharton, University of Tennessee - Chattanooga; Anthony Henderson, Hampton University; Alex Ricker-Gilbert, Jacksonville University. Also, joining the lineup are influential speakers Kristi Dosh, founder of Business of College Sports; Colton Houston, HD Intelligence; Jeff Schemmel, College Sport Solutions and Rick Boyages of ShotQuality. Panel discussions and breakout sessions include First-time Head Coaches, The AD / Coach Relationship, Taking the Reins (of an existing program), NIL and Athletic Director panel.    

The fan-favorite "Speed Dating" returns and allows for rapid networking to take place between the assistant coaches and administrators.   The three-word mantra of "Connect. Prepare. Lead." identifies the purpose of TopConnect. 

Since the inception of TopConnect in 2018, more than 50 assistant coach and assistant athletic director participants have been promoted to the next chair of Head Coach and Athletic Director as well as a Conference Commissioner.

TopConnect is on all social media platforms @TopConnectLead. If you have questions regarding TopConnect, please contact Dr. Richard Sander at docsander30@gmail.com.  TopConnect works in conjunction with Connected Media, LLC, East Tennessee State University's Doctoral program in Global Sport Leadership, #INFLCR and Teamworks.