After 44 seasons, the Massachusetts women’s basketball team has finished up a long tenure as a founding member of the Atlantic 10 conference. Next season, the team will move to the Mid-American Conference. With a history consisting of 10 head coaches, three NCAA tournament appearances and one A-10 tournament championship, here’s a look at the story, now with an ending.
Back in 1975, the Eastern Collegiate Basketball League was established and after just one season, the conference expanded to other sports and in 1981, the same year the Minutewomen played their first season, it adopted the name Atlantic 10. UMass was one of three founding members remaining in the conference 44 years later, along with George Washington and Duquesne.
After a lackluster 11 years trying to get its feet under them, the Minutewomen hired Joanie O’Brien, which kick-started a successful 11-year run for UMass with two NCAA tournament appearances.
In the 1995-96 season, the team received an at-large bid to its first NCAA tournament, falling by just three points to Michigan State as an eight seed, 60-57. That season, Octavia Thomas, who averaged 15.7 points and 7.9 rebounds across her four-year career, averaged 17 points a game, joining four total Minutewomen in double digits to do so. Thomas is fourth all time in points and rebounds in program history.
Just two years later, UMass made the tournament once again as a 13 seed but fell in the first round to Iowa.
In 2016, Tory Verdi took over the program and led it to heights not experienced since that of O’Brien’s tenure. After five years of building a culture, Verdi led the Minutewomen to their most successful season in the A-10 with a 26-7 record, including an 11-4 conference record.
In that same year, Verdi helped UMass claim a 62-56 victory in the A-10 Championship, achieving something never done before in program history, a conference tournament championship. The team would fall to Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Just one year later, the Minutewomen found themselves in the A-10 championship once again after a 27-7 season and a program high 14 wins in conference play but ultimately fell to Saint Louis. They lost in the second round of the WNIT and Verdi left for the University of Pittsburgh that offseason.
Verdi’s tenure saw two of the best players in program history in Sam Breen and Destiney Philoxy. Breen is the program’s all-time leading scorer with 1,974 points and was a two-time conference player of the year, the only one in program history to do so. Philoxy had 699 assists in her career, also topping the program ranks.
Sydney Taylor, another top-player from Verdi’s tenure, is second in program history in 3-pointers with 718.
All in all, UMass’ run in the A-10 came to an end on March 6 with a loss to Saint Louis in the A-10 tournament.
The Minutewomen leave the conference with a 540-741 record, two regular season conference titles, one tournament title and three NCAA tournament appearances.
While the move to the MAC is a downgrade according to RPI rankings of conferences, where the A-10 is ranked 8th and the MAC at 13th, it presents an opportunity for current head coach Mike Leflar to take UMass back to heights it achieved under Verdi with the budding culture occurring in Amherst.
Owen Shelffo can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter/X @owen_shelffo.
