History
UCF began competing in AIAW in 1977-78 in Division II. In their third season, the Knights went 23–9 and won the AIAW D–II Small College National Championship the during the 1979–80 season. Although a member of the Sunshine State Conference, it did not organize women's basketball within the conference until 1981. They moved up to AIAW Division I in 1981–82, the last year of AIAW, and advanced to the Division I Tournament quarterfinals.
They moved to the NCAA in 1982–83, initially in Division II with the rest of the Sunshine State Conference, and were promoted to Division I in 1984–85. In all three years playing for the Sunshine State Conference, the Knights won both the conference regular season and tournament titles all three years. In their first year in NCAA Division I, they had a 20–10 record, but were not given a tournament bid since they were non-conference that first year.
The team would struggle in Division I conference play with the New South Women's Athletic Conference (NSWAC) until 1990. After playing in the American South Conference in 1990–91, which merged into the Sun Belt Conference in 1991, the team landed in the Trans-American Athletic Conference (TAAC) in 1992–93. Ironically, the NSWAC had merged into the TAAC the previous year. In 1995–96, the Knights surprised everybody by winning the TAAC Tournament, and making its first appearance in the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, though they were eliminated in the first round.
In 1996–97, UCF hired Lynn Bria as their women's basketball head coach, and the team began to see more success. In 1998–99, UCF finally arrived, winning the TAAC regular season title with a 13–3 record and winning the Conference Tournament, earning its second NCAA Tournament bid. Still, Bria was replaced as head coach by Gail Striegler following its NCAA Tournament ouster.
After two years of struggling, Striegler put together a string of four winning seasons both overall and in what had become the Atlantic Sun Conference in 2001–02. The team won the Atlantic Sun regular season title in 2002–03 and 2004–05, but failed to win the Conference Tournament, and thus never played in the NCAA Tournament.
In 2005–06, the Knights moved to Conference USA, and the women's basketball team struggled mightily, resulting in Striegler being fired and replaced by Joi Williams. The team continued to struggle in 2007–08 with a 10–20 record and a last place showing in the conference. But after a 2–11 start in 2008–09, they surprised C-USA by dominating, tying with four other teams with the second-best in-conference record of 11–5 (falling to the fifth seed due to their out-of-conference woes). In the Conference USA Tournament, they beat Rice (66–64), Houston (79–66) and SMU (62–51) in order to face Southern Miss in the Championship game. After fighting to a 52–52 tie in regulation, UCF dominated the overtime period, 13–2, to win the game, 65–54. It was UCF's first C-USA title, earning its third NCAA Tournament appearance. Ranked No. 14 in the Oklahoma City regional in the 2009 NCAA Tournament, they surprised the No. 3 North Carolina Tar Heels, ultimately losing 85–80.
After floundering in 2009–10 (10–15, 7–9), the Knights dominated the conference schedule in 2010–11 (22–10, 12–4), finishing 2nd in the regular season and winning their second C-USA title along with their fourth NCAA tournament appearance.
Read more about this topic: UCF Knights Women's Basketball
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