For TCU Women’s Basketball Head Coach Mark Campbell, last season probably felt like the early days of women’s intercollegiate basketball.
“We didn’t have enough healthy bodies. We were doing open tryouts,” he pointed out Wednesday after his now fully-staffed squad defeated the Houston Cougars in its penultimate regular-season game. The win moved them to 27-3 overall and 15-2 in the Big 12, one season after an unprecedented accumulation of injuries caused them to forfeit games and have to do some in-season on-campus recruiting to finish out a 6-12 conference campaign.
Today tips off Women’s History Month. The Frogs’ program dates to 1977, an era in which U.S. university athletic departments were figuring out how to add women’s sports to comply with Title IX regulations. The TCU media guide lists seven players on that inaugural team. They went 5-18 under head coach Judy Daley.
Campbell has his current group in a better position, record-wise – historically better, in fact. The Horned Frogs will finish the season with no more than six losses overall – fewer than any previous team. A win in their game at Baylor tomorrow would guarantee them their first Big 12 conference title in the sport. The Associated Press has the Frogs ranked 10th in the country, their highest placement ever. This season’s achievements signify the progress the program has made since those early days and also offer some insight into how the sport itself has evolved.
After Wednesday’s game, TCU held Senior Night ceremonies to recognize players in their final years at the school. The honorees weren’t all seniors, per se. The roster includes some graduate students, too. The presence of student-athletes pursuing advanced degrees has become more prominent across all NCAA sports in recent years, buoyed by extra COVID-related eligibility and liberalized transfer rules. Campbell was able to use the transfer portal to build a team in a way his predecessors could not.
The NCAA took over governance of women’s sports in the early 1980s. TCU played in the Southwest Conference from 1982-1996. Competing against national title-winning powers like Texas and Texas Tech, the Horned Frogs finished at the very bottom of the league more often than not. TCU under Campbell has won 21 Big 12 conference games in two years. In 14 seasons of SWC play, the Frogs won a total of 28.
Transfers lead the squad in all major statistical categories. Campbell has made the most of the opportunities the portal has supplied, with high-profile signings Hailey Van Lith and Sedona Prince becoming driving forces in lifting the program to its current heights.
Women’s college basketball has needed more parity and TCU might be an indicator of how the portal (and accompanying NIL incentives in some cases) can provide it. Van Lith in particular chose TCU after stints at high-profile programs Louisville and LSU plus winning an Olympic medal. She relished the opportunity to make some history at her current institution.
“In the past, I’ve kind of went to schools that have established themselves. So this has been a new journey, and it’s a unique story, because at the same time, we’re always being told, like, how good we’re doing because we’re breaking a lot of records at this school, but we also know underneath that, like, how much potential this team has,” she said. “It’s been unique to be at a school we’re kind of trailblazing, and I’m super grateful for it.”
For most of its history, the small Fort Worth private school had no chance of landing a player of Van Lith’s pedigree. Now, with a savvy coach and a changing landscape in women’s college basketball, they do.
“TCU, first and foremost, is such a special package as an institution, the type of people it attracts, the high achievers. I think I’ve been able to unlock that and identify the young women that fit that and that also are elite basketball players and have the right DNA,” said Campbell. “What we’re doing is unprecedented, to go from once 1-17 (in the Big 12 conference the year before he arrived) to top 10 in the country.”
More signs of the ascendance of the program and the sport were evident on campus this week. Coach Campbell threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game. My guess is that’s not something his 1970s counterparts would have gotten to do. And it was especially telling to see a man and his son both wearing Van Lith replica jerseys in the arena concourse on Wednesday. That’s a sign of advancement, too. On the court, TCU was 15-30 in its history against Houston before this week’s game, but now clearly now has the upper hand in the matchup.
The TCU program enjoyed its greatest success during stints in the Western Athletic Conference, the Mountain West, and Conference USA. It’s been tougher to compete since joining its current (tougher) league in 2012. Despite losing powers UT and Oklahoma to the SEC this year, the Big 12 still has five teams ranked in the AP Top 25. That TCU is one of them represents progress for the program and maybe for college basketball itself.
The game Sunday in Waco promises to be a good one, Campbell indicated.
“We’re definitely playing the best basketball of our season. I think Baylor is, too. And so I think you’ve got two teams that are playing high level and are peaking as we head into March.”
While TCU figured out how to build its program, Baylor was winning three national titles between 2005 and 2019. The Bears had never played in an NCAA tournament before 2001. In 2025, TCU will be favored to get out of the NCAA second round for the first time. Their ceiling, and that of women’s sports generally, has been raised.
