USIU to Drop Women’s Basketball

U.S. International University will drop its women’s basketball program, effective at the end of this season, Coach Cassie Macias said Wednesday night.

Women’s basketball is the second major sport that USIU has dropped within the past year, having eliminated men’s hockey after last season. The athletic department now has the minimum number of sports--six each for men and women--required to remain in National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division I.

Macias said she had notified Athletic Director Al Palmiotto that she intended to resign after the season to pursue other interests. But they decided not to announce her resignation until the end of the season.

“It was very coincidental that it happened the same year,” Macias said. “One of my first questions was, ‘Was this because I’ve resigned?’ and Dr. Palmiotto said, ‘No, they didn’t even know about it.’

“They did research into what direction they wanted to go early in the year and they told us to stop scheduling and recruiting for all the programs until they made a decision,” Macias said. “They then decided they would stay Division I.”

But not without some sacrifice.

“Obviously, we are the most expensive female sport, “ Macias said.

Women’s basketball is fully funded at USIU with 15 full-ride scholarship, the maximum allowed by the NCAA. USIU’s 11 players--7 seniors, 1 junior and 3 freshmen--will be allowed to transfer without losing a year of eligibility.

Macias, in her sixth year at USIU, was the school’s first full-time women’s basketball coach.She started the season with an 85-54 career record, including a West Coast Athletic Conference championship and a berth in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament in the 1985-86 season. The Gulls were 24-9 that season.

USIU is 4-12 this season and left this morning for a 3-game trip to Utah, Wyoming and Northern Arizona.

USIU finished second in the WCAC in 1986-87, but the school was dropped from the conference after the season when the conference aligned its women’s programs with the men’s.

Other that those 2 seasons, USIU has been an independent since turning Division I in 1979.

“It’s unfortunate but with the changes coming down it would be hard to maintain a certain level of success that we’ve become accustomed too,” said Macias, who was an assistant at Northeast Louisiana before coming to USIU. “The scheduling was getting very, very tough. We had to travel a lot this year and next year we were finding that we would have to travel a lot again.

“I have to feel good about what happened the last 6 years. With all the obstacles and challenges we faced, we accomplished a lot.”