Pioneer women's basketball powers fade into the shadows full of pride as money reshapes the game

When fans walk into Immaculata's gym they are immediately reminded of the team's glorious past, when the Mighty Macs ruled women's basketball nearly a half-century ago. Championship trophies are proudly displayed near the entrance while Hall of Fame banners honoring some of the school's icons, including former coach Cathy Rush, adorn the walls. Powerhouses in this weekend's Final Four like UConn and South Carolina stand on the shoulders of schools like Immaculata, Queens College, Wayland Baptist and Delta State. During the early years of the women's basketball poll that debuted in 1976, those programs set the foundation, dominating the now dissolved Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). But during the 50 years of the women's poll, those pioneering programs haven't been able to sustain the dynasty-level success that shaped women's hoops in the 1970s. "You can look back and say, 'Well, it's been a few years since we won a national championship,'" said Delta State athletic director Mike Kinnison, who was a student when the school won consecutive national titles from 1975-1977. "And that's true. But, you know, they don't give those away. You don't buy them at Walmart. You've got to earn them." The game has professionalized as money reshaped the sports landscape, and competitive advantages shifted to big schools with seemingly unlimited budgets when the NCAA took over the sport in 1982. The Lady Statesmen were the first No. 1 team when the women's basketball poll debuted 50 years ago. Wayland Baptist was second, Immaculata third and Queens ninth. Delta State will be recognized during "The AP Top 25 Fan Poll Experience" being held Thursday-Saturday at Arizona State's First Amendment Forum in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The poll has served as a road map for the rise of the sport but a lot of things have happened since 1982. "The whole landscape of NCAA and Division II has changed," Kinnison said. "Women's basketball has just exploded. And so it's hard to dominate that space." 'Incredible' changes to women's basketball Immaculata won three consecutive AIAW titles from 1972-1976 in front of sellout crowds that were a rarity in women's basketball at the time. Delta State won the next three under trailblazing coach Margaret Wade. The Lady Statesmen vaulted to the national spotlight, traveling the country and defeating larger schools — with much bigger budgets — like LSU and Tennessee. Title IX helped fuel rapid growth in women's sports in the 1970s, but as the women's game grew, the NCAA took over and added full scholarship allotments and started facilities arms races that smaller colleges could not compete with. Amid the shift, Immaculata moved down to Division III, which does not offer athletic scholarships. Queens College and Delta State dropped to Division II while Wayland Baptist is in the NAIA. The shift in women's sports is both gratifying and bittersweet for players and coaches from the pioneering schools that helped spark this current growth. Women's basketball in recent years has seen skyrocketing ticket demand, attendance, media coverage and television ratings behind recent stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers. "Women and girls were playing this game at a different level all over the country and no one knew about it," former Queens College coach Lucille Kyvallos said. "What happened here was we garnered national attention. Now look what's happened. It's incredible." Winning titles requires 'significant investment' The current revenue sharing model that allows schools to directly pay athletes has added a greater financial hurdle for small schools to overcome. "If you want to be nationally competitive, if you want to win national championships, there's a very significant investment involved," said Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman, "because you're paying top dollar for your coach. You're paying for all the amenities. ... And then you've got to, now you've got to acquire players, and to do that you need money, because they have options. And smaller schools aren't going to have the same (financial) wherewithal as the big football school has." The 68-team women's NCAA tournament field, for example, had 12 schools from the Big Ten, 10 from the SEC and nine ACC schools. The Big 12 had eight. There were only one at-large team from outside the Power 4 Conferences and the Big East. "Is that a bad thing?" Ackerman added. "No — I think it's just the reality of the world we're in right now." Kinnison, who coached baseball at Delta State for 23 seasons before becoming athletic director in 2019, said he wants the school's teams to be able to compete nationally and recapture some form of sustained success. That has been difficult, he added, and the school has faced tough financial decisions to make that happen. "More and more, we rely on private sources, donations, alumni," he said in his office on Delta State's campus in Cleveland, Mississippi. "We're in a town here of 11,000 people, and that's not the density of a town that has 100,000 or 150,000 people. Some of our corporate options are a little less, so it's challenging." Pioneers battle against becoming afterthoughts The Delta State AD, along with others at Queens College and Immaculata, remain hopeful that their programs won't be forgotten. The court at Queens College is named after Kyvallos, the women's basketball Hall of Famer and advocate who built the Knights into pioneers in the AIAW era. At Delta State, there are similar tributes in the arena's concourse: championship trophies and the preserved netting, the name of former coach Lloyd Clark is painted on the floor of the court named after him, honoring the period in which he won three Division II titles and guided 16 of his teams to the NCAA Tournament. "You have to be a steward of that history, you have to tell those stories and talk about those individuals because it was crazy to think about what they had to go through," current Queens coach Travis Ponton said. Current Immaculata coach Brittany Whalen is very familiar with the history of the program. She played there from 2011-15 and was on the court at Madison Square Garden when the team played Queens College in her senior year — four decades after the two programs played the first women's basketball game at MSG. "It felt like being a celebrity," Whalen said. "To tie in to that part of the history and that being the first-ever game played there it was just so cool to be a part of." Whalen, who has led the team to its first 20-win season since 1976-77 at 24-3, gives tours of the facility to perspective players. "This is the same building they played in back in the 70s and not much has changed," she said. "We talk about it in the preseason how you're here because of the women who paved the way before you. If you're going to be a Mighty Mac and be a part of the program, you need to know the history of it." Current Delta State coach Tracy Stewart-Lange has a similar appreciation for her program's history. There's a photo in her phone that reminds her of those days. Former Delta State star and basketball pioneer Lusia Harris is captured mid-layup, and behind her fans are sitting courtside, pressed against the railings and anywhere else they could find a spot. Games are much quieter now that the school has faded from national prominence, and Stewart-Lange often wonders if that will change. "We want to fill these seats," she said. "We're trying to figure out can that still be done." Alanis Thames reported from Cleveland, Mississippi; Doug Feinberg reported from New York City and Philadelphia.