A first time champion, five postseason teams and record-setting performances highlighted an impressive 2012-13 season by the 10 Big West women's basketball squads.
BIG WEST AT A GLANCE
• Cal Poly just completed a sterling campaign filled with firsts. The Mustangs won their first Big West Tournament title, earned their first NCAA Tournament berth, collected a program record-tying 21 wins, are making their third consecutive postseason appearance (2 WNIT, 1 NCAA) and have had the last four Big West Players of the Year. Head coach Faith Mimnaugh also won her 200th game this season, adding to her program record which now stands at 216.
• Five teams continued their 2012-13 seasons in postseason tournaments. The aforementioned Cal Poly played in the NCAAs, while Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara, Hawai’i and regular season champion Pacific earned WNIT nods. The four WNIT bids matches the league record set a year ago.
• The 27 wins by Pacific enter the program into elite company in Big West history. That win threshold has only been reached 12 times in conference lore, most recently by the 2003-04 UC Santa Barbara squad. The league has also had only three 30+ win teams in history, the most recent being the 1999-2000 UCSB team. The all-time record for wins in a single season is held by Long Beach State in 1986-87 with 33.
• The two wins by Pacific in the WNIT give it three all-time, matching the most in Big West history with UC Santa Barbara. The two schools account for six of the 17 wins all-time by the league in the WNIT.
• UC Riverside’s Tre’Shonti Nottingham ended her illustrious Highlander career last weekend with her name etched in the Big West record books. Nottingham went 418-for-488 from the free throw line over her four-year career, converting at a league-record 85.6% clip. Nottingham broke the record of a former teammate, Brittany Waddell. Waddell shot 84.2% from 2006-08 and 09-11.
• Long Beach State’s Devin Hudson made quite the mark in her lone Big West Tournament game, scoring 17 points to go along with 24 rebounds. The 24 boards is a new Big West Tournament record and makes Hudson the lone player in league history to have 20 or more rebounds in a Tournament game.
• The 27 wins by Pacific enter the program into elite company in Big West history. That win threshold has only been reached 12 times in conference lore, most recently by the 2003-04 UC Santa Barbara squad. The league has also had only three 30+ win teams in history, the most recent being the 1999-2000 UCSB team. The all-time record for wins in a single season is held by Long Beach State in 1986-87 with 33.
• The Big West first team consists of six players from five teams. Pacific’s senior duo of Erica McKenzie and Kendall Rodriguez are the lone pair of teammates on the club, the first time the Tigers have placed two on the first team since Gillian d’Hondt and Seleno Ho were on the 2002 first team. Cal Poly’s Molly Schlemer, UC Davis’ Sydnee Fipps, UC Santa Barbara’s Sweets Underwood and Hawai’i Kamilah Martin rounded out the team.
• The Big West is enjoyed one of its finer non-conference showings in recent memory with a 59-64 record, an improvement over the 50-70 record the conference posted a season ago. Included in this season’s non-conference record is a 9-14 record against Pac-12 opposition, improving on a 5-16 mark from 2011-12.
• Cal State Fullerton made quite the unexpected run in the Big West Tournament, reaching the semifinals for the first time since 2009. After entering the Tournament as a No. 8 seed, the Titans knocked off No. 5 Long Beach State and No. 3 Hawai’i before falling on a last second three-pointer against No. 1 Pacific. CSF became the first eight seed to win two games at the Big West Tournament.