Hall of Fame
The 1990-91 Washington State women’s basketball team set the standard for success at the NCAA Division I level for the program and gave the Cougars their first taste of the postseason at the highest level of intercollegiate athletics. Head Coach Harold Rhodes, the 1991 Pac-10 Coach of the Year, and the Cougars put in a total team effort to post a then-school record 18 wins, including a then-school record 10 Pac-10 Conference victories, to earn the program’s first bid into the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament where they faced Northwestern in the Midwest Regional. WSU won seven of its first eight games, then swept the Arizona schools to end the regular season and secure their postseason berth. Rhodes guided the Cougars through trials and tribulations that season, as WSU had to endure three season-ending injuries through the first 13 games of the campaign. Senior center Kristin Metson rose to the challenge, leading the team in both scoring (14.2 ppg) and rebounding (7.2 rpg), en route to shooting a then-school record 55.1 percent. Junior Heather Norman led the way from behind-the-arc for WSU, hitting a then WSU single-season record 61 3-point field goals. The Cougars’ inspired success on the court earned Rhodes Pac-10 Coach of the Year honors that season, making him the first WSU women’s basketball coach to garner the accolade. The 1990-91 team held the distinction as the only WSU women’s basketball team to make an NCAA Tournament for 30 seasons, until the 2020-21 team earned an at-large bid into the 2021 NCAA Tournament.
