Women's Basketball
The Villanova Wildcats women's basketball team are coached by Harry Perretta, now serving his 34th year as head coach of the team. They play their home games in The Pavilion on the Villanova campus. The Women's basketball program started in 1969 and played under CIAW and AIAW through 1981-82 season before moving to NCAA Division I. In the 81-82 season, the Wildcats posted an outstanding 29-4 record and reached the Final Four of the 1982 AIAW Women's Basketball Tournament before losing to eventual National Champion, Rutgers. Through the 2009-10 season, the Villanova Women have a 669-413 alltime record since the program started in 1969. Previous head coaches include Liz Cawley (1969–70), Jane Sefranek-Stolz (1970–75) and Joan King (1975–78). The 1982-83 season was the initial season for Villanova Women's basketball to play NCAA Division I and they joined the Big East Conference that same season. Villanova was the Big East regular season and tournament champions in both 1985-86 and 1986-87 behind All-American Shelly Pennefather.
During the 2008-09 season, Coach Perretta led the Wildcats to the NCAA Tournament for the ninth time in his Villanova career. This marked the ninth postseason appearance in the previous 10 years for the Wildcats. After playing in the 2000 WNIT, Villanova went to four consecutive NCAA Tournaments from 2001-2004 before playing in the WNIT in 2005, 2006 and 2008.
The 2002-03 season was a special one for the Wildcats. In addition to an impressive 28-6 overall record and a 12-4 Big East Conference mark, the Wildcats won their third Big East Conference Tournament championship and first since 1987 with an improbable 52-48 upset over previously unbeaten Connecticut. The win snapped Connecticut's then NCAA Division I women's basketball record of 70-straight victories and ended Connecticut's streak of nine-straight conference tournament championships.
The dean of the Big East and Big 5 coaches, Harry Perretta has brought the Wildcats national respect and success during his tenure at Villanova which began in 1978 at the age of 22. Coach Perretta reached a coaching milestone on November 12, 2011 with a win over Iona, representing the 600th win of his career. He is the 35th coach in the history of women's basketball at any level to reach the 600 win plateau, including the 22nd to accomplish the feat at the Division I level. Perretta is only the seventh NCAA Division I coaches to have 600 victories all at one school. On February 8, 2012, Perretta reached another milestone as he became the seventh coach across all NCAA divisions to coach 1,000 games at the same institution. Perretta was named the 2009 Big East Conference Co-Coach of the Year. That was the third time in his career that he has garnered Big East Coach of the Year distinction. He has led the Wildcats to fourteen seasons of 20 wins or more. Since joining the Big East in 1982, Perretta has compiled a 200-175 conference record through 2010.
Shelly Pennefather, was recognized in 1987 as the nation's top women's college basketball player, winning the Margaret Wade Trophy and earning Kodak All-America honors. Pennefather was the first 3-time winner of the Big East Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Year. She is the all-time leading scorer in the history of Villanova basketball with 2408 points. Pennefather was named the best Colorado Girls High school player of all-time and led Bishop Machebeuf Catholic High School to a 96-0 record and 3 State Championships.
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Famous quotes containing the words women and/or basketball:
“I think housework is the reason most women go to the office.”
—Heloise Cruse (20th century)
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)