OT - Top 4-year Runs in Women's College Basketball History

[ZagDad84]

Just some fun facts for those practicing some social distancing. A stroll down memory lane for some of us long-time Wbb, maybe some history lessons for the newbies. Most Wbb fans are aware of the Pat Summit Tennessee years and more recently Geno at UConn or Dawn Staley at South Carolina and Kym Mulkey at Baylor. But how many remember the Old Dominion's, The glory years of the University of Southern California, the Lady Monarchs of Louisiana Tech. Interesting to see that Stanford has not won an NCAA championship since 1992 but have remained relevant for the last almost 30 years while USC had been almost non-existent for the past 15-20 years but won two titles in the mid-1980's..

While what we call mid-majors were very relevant in the beginning of the NCAA tournament (first tournament was held in 1982) as they won 3 of the first 7 NCAA tournament titles (Old Dominion (1) and Louisiana Tech (2)), no other mid-major has won the NCAA title since 1988 when Louisiana Tech won their second title.

From ESPNW:

Top 4-year Runs in Women's College Basketball History
ESPN
Mar 23, 2020

Dynasties don't come around often, but when they do they are worth celebrating. These women's basketball teams dominated their competition for four years straight and made good players some of the Greatest of All Time.

Old Dominion (1981-85)
Record: 106-20
Championships: 1 (1985)

USC (1981-85)
Record: 104-19
Championships: 2 (1983 and '84)

Texas (1983-87)
Record: 125-8
Championships: 1 (1986)

Louisiana Tech (1986-90)
Record: 126-10
Championships: 1 (1988)

Stanford (1988-92)
Record: 116-13
Championships: 2 (1990 and '92)

Tennessee (1994-98)
Record: 134-19
Championships: 3 (1996, '97 and '98)

UConn (2000-04)
Record: 139-8
Championships: 3 (2002, '03 and '04)

Tennessee (2004-08)
Record: 131-15
Championships: 2 (2007 and '08)

UConn (2007-11)
Record: 150-4
Championships: 2 (2009 and '10)

Baylor (2008-12)
Record: 130-19
Championships: 1 (2012)

UConn (2012-16)
Record: 151-5
Championships: 4 (2013, '14, '15 and '16)

South Carolina (2014-2018)
Record: 129-16
Championships: 1 (2017)

For reference standards, the best four year records for the Lady Zags:
- Kelly Graves - 2010/2011 to 2013/2014 - 115 - 22 - (1) Elite Eight, (1) sweet 16 and (2) first round losses.
- Lisa Fortier - 2016/2017 to 2019/2020 - 110 - 21 - (1) second round loss & (2) first round losses*

*NCAA tournament canceled so CLF would have had at least one more loss and possibly 2 or 3 more wins (or more for 2019/2020 season)

Article Link with pictures and captions:https://www.espn.com/photos/story/_/...etball-history

ZagDad

[TerpZag]

A stroll down memory lane...

Women’s college basketball wasn’t always dominated by big schools. First came the Mighty Macs.

The Immaculata College team won the first three national titles back in the 1970s.


By Fred Bowen
March 13, 2019


It’s time for March Madness — the NCAA college basketball tournaments.

Notice I said tournaments. Although the men’s games get most of the attention on television and in the news, there is also a women’s championship.

So in the interest of equal time and fair play, let’s take a look at the history of the women’s tournament. It’s an interesting one.

The NCAA women’s basketball tournament started in 1982 (the men’s tournament started in 1939). However, from 1972 to 1981, women’s college basketball teams played for the national championship in something called the AIAW Women’s Basketball Tournament. The AIAW was the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.

Women’s college basketball and the AIAW tournament were very different from today’s NCAA tournament with its big schools and big arenas packed with cheering crowds.

How different? Most colleges, including many of the big ones, did not have much in the way of women’s sports. The school that won the first three AIAW basketball championships was Immaculata College (now Immaculata University), a small school in Pennsylvania, which at the time had about 500 students, all women.

The Mighty Macs, as they were called, also looked different from today’s teams. The women wore old-fashioned uniforms that included skirts, high white socks and Converse basketball shoes.

Another thing that was different about the Immaculata College team: Its head coach, Cathy Rush, was paid $450 a season to coach the team. Now some women’s college basketball coaches make more than $1 million a year.

But the Mighty Macs could play. Led by high-scoring center Theresa Shank, Immaculata beat West Chester State, 52-48, in the 1972 final. By the way, the championship game was not played in a big city. It was played in Normal, Illinois, a small town.

The Mighty Macs won two more titles, beating Queens College and Mississippi College (not the University of Mississippi) in 1973 and 1974. Immaculata made it to the finals the following two years but lost to Delta State University each time.

Soon, larger schools began to develop their women’s basketball teams. Coach Rush retired, and Immaculata dropped to Division III, where it did not give out athletic scholarships and played smaller schools such as Marymount University and Wesley College.

Now big universities dominate the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. The University of Tennessee, led by legendary Coach Pat Summitt, won eight championships from 1987 to 2008. The University of Connecticut Huskies won 11 titles from 1995 to 2016 and might win another this year.

But Tennessee and Connecticut are the only schools that can say they have won more national titles in women’s basketball than Immaculata.

The Mighty Macs.

The Washington Post Article Link

[ZagDad84]

Fantastic TerpZag. I thought I went way back.

Thank You.

ZagDad

[seacatfan]

Interesting, thanks for continuing to post these threads to give us something to do while there is literally nothing happening in the world of sports.

Some gaudy records posted by all those teams. I have a bit of a hard time considering anyone that won one Championship in a 4 year period a dynasty though, which applies to quite a few of them. I could figure it out if I took the time, but some of them weren't even perennial Final 4 entrants. Winning a bunch of games is nice but if you don't get the results in the post season...

Several of those runs by UConn were simply ridiculous.

[TerpZag]

Fantastic TerpZag. I thought I went way back.

Thank You.

ZagDad

Apparently, my life experience brings me closer to ancient history then some others including yourself.

Two more tidbits of history regarding Immaculata:

On January 26, 1975, Immaculata played in the first nationally televised women's intercollegiate basketball game. Facing Maryland at Cole Field House...First women's college basketball game on national TV was a hard sell

On February 22, 1975, Immaculata played in the first women's college basketball game ever played in Madison Square Garden. Immaculata won 65-61. On January 4, 2015, Immaculata and Queens College played in the Maggie Dixon Classic as a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the first game played between women's college basketball teams in Madison Square Garden.


We have been fortunate to witness progress in the growth of collegiate and high school sports opportunities for young women over the years. But in many respects it has been too slow. Hopefully, we will be able to see much more progress in the area of collegiate and high school sports opportunities for young women in different sports in the near future.

[Bogozags]

I think I complained about this before...that there is a lack of statistics and box scores on ESPN...as ZagDad explained, equality is not yet present BUT it has improved over the years and continues to do so...

I was an assistant women's coach at UNCC back in 85-86 and Old Dominion, I think was the last winner of the AIAW Championship before the NCAA took over...ODU that season was just an incredible team...our coach said they had five grey-hounds on that team relating to the speed, agility and skill level of their players...yes, the game sure has change...today each woman has a full scholarship while back in the day, we had nine scholarships for 15 women...BUT ODU did have 15 full rides...