As UK women’s basketball celebrates its 50th year, the program stands at a crossroads

There are those who maintain there’s no bad time to have a celebration. The University of Kentucky women’s basketball program is testing that axiom.

On Sunday, when UK (9-16, 2-9 SEC) tips off at noon against Florida (13-10, 4-7 SEC) at Rupp Arena, the Wildcats are celebrating the golden anniversary of the modern Kentucky women’s basketball program with an “Alumni Game” event scheduled to feature in excess of 90 ex-Cats.

Among the former UK women’s basketball luminaries who are expected to be at Rupp are Victoria Dunlap Connley, Makayla Epps, Patty Jo Hedges-Ward, Rhyne Howard, Samantha Mahoney, Maci Morris, Leslie Nichols, Stacey Reed Sheppard, Valerie Still and Lea Wise Prewitt. Former coaches Sharon Fanning-Otis, Sue Feamster, Matthew Mitchell and Debbie Yow are also expected for the reunion.

Alas, the celebration of UK women’s basketball’s 50th anniversary comes at a time when the current program is mired in a competitive trough. One season after going 2-14 to finish last in the SEC, Kentucky is 2-9 so far this year and, again, tied for last place in the conference.

Given that, this seems an appropriate time to assess where UK women’s basketball has been in its initial 50 seasons and what it should aspire to be moving forward.

There have been two periods of program ascendancy in the modern history of UK women’s basketball.

One corresponded to the arrival on campus in 1979 of Valerie Still — to this day, the Wildcats’ all-time scoring and rebounding leader. Over the next four seasons, Still and classmates Lea Wise and Patty Jo Hedges led Kentucky to a 96-24 overall mark, including the 1982 SEC title and a trip to the 1982 NCAA Tournament Elite Eight.

The second period of sustained success came during the coaching tenure of Matthew Mitchell (2007 through 2020). The all-time coaching wins leader in UK history, Mitchell (303-133) built Kentucky into a consistent top-15 program, won the 2011-12 SEC regular-season title and led the Cats to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight three times and the Sweet 16 five times.

Yet even in the best years of the Mitchell era, there was a level that Kentucky was unable to breach. Under Mitchell, the Wildcats went 0-3 in NCAA tourney region finals (although, in fairness, two of those losses were to Connecticut teams that were all but unbeatable) and 0-4 in SEC Tournament finals.

Even with those two periods of ascension, the overarching story of the first 50 years of women’s basketball at UK is one of promise unfulfilled.

There’s no way any basketball program affiliated with the University of Kentucky should have gone 50 years without making the Final Four.

The standard for “Kentucky basketball” — be that the men’s program or the women’s — should be the same. Meaning, a program that consistently competes for league titles and Final Four berths and where a player can come for a viable chance to win a national title.

For decades, coaches in the women’s college basketball industry referred to UK as one of the sport’s “sleeping giants.” But, for whatever reason, Kentucky has never been able to fully tap into its program’s potential and awaken that giant.

In the decades that immediately followed the Valerie Still era through the arrival of Mitch Barnhart as UK athletics director in 2002, it was easy to question Kentucky’s administrative commitment to success in women’s hoops.

Having cut his teeth as a young college sports administrator at Tennessee in the Pat Summitt era, Barnhart invested in the Kentucky women’s program in meaningful ways. Even now, the university is spending in excess of $80 million to renovate Memorial Coliseum. That will turn that venerable venue, first opened in 1950, into a modern showplace.

With the “new Coliseum” slated to open for the 2024-25 season, the current Kentucky women’s basketball program needed to generate positive momentum. Whether that came through strong results on the court or some exciting successes in recruiting, the goal was to have the program in position to benefit from the debut of the new and improved “House that Rupp Built.”

Instead, UK is 21-35 over the past two seasons. This season, Kentucky is 0-8 in true road games and has lost those contests by an average margin of 22 points. Against ranked teams, UK is 0-4 and has lost by an average margin of 36 1/2 points.

As for recruiting, the Wildcats program has not signed even one player ranked in ESPN’s HoopGurlz Top 100 in either the class of 2023 or 2024.

All of that has people wondering about the future of embattled fourth-year head coach Kyra Elzy (58-56, 21-37 SEC). She has three seasons after this one remaining on her contract. According to my reading of her pact, it would cost the university some $2.4 million to buy Elzy out after this season.

So while this might not be the ideal moment for a Kentucky Wildcats women’s basketball celebration, Sunday’s festivities should serve two purposes:

It will be a reminder of some really good times and really good players from the first 50 years of UK women’s basketball.

And it should also serve as a prod to make sure the next 50 years are better than the first 50 have been.

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