April 29, 2007

Cullowhee, N.C. - Under the direction of head coach Kellie Harper and staff, the Western Carolina Lady Catamounts put together the nation's biggest turnaround from the 2005-06 season through the 2006-07 campaign, as released this week by the NCAA. WCU posted a 12.5 game turnaround over the course of a year to rank atop the most improved women's basketball teams, tied with Oklahoma State.

The NCAA determines games improved by adding the difference in victories between the two seasons to the difference in losses, including postseason play, then dividing by two.

During the 2005-06 season, the Lady Catamounts went 9-20, coming within seconds of advancing to the Southern Conference tournament championship game after falling to eventual champion, Chattanooga, in the semifinals.

This season, Western compiled one of the most historic seasons in the program's 42-year history, posting a school-record 24 wins - including the 500th all-time - and claimed a share of the school's first-ever SoCon regular season championship. WCU also entered the conference tournament as the top-seed for the first-time in school history with the 15 conference victories were the most-ever by a WCU squad.

Western continued to make history by hosting - and winning - its first-ever NCAA postseason game, sinking East Tennessee State, 91-63, at the Ramsey Center

The Lady Catamounts also had a record season at the turnstiles, breaking the previous top attendance of 1,282 that witnessed the Lady Cats versus N.C. State back in 1980 three-times. In the season-opener, WCU drew 1,979 fans to establish a new benchmark, surpassing that tally with a school-record 2,128 in the home win over Chattanooga in early February. In the WNIT game against ETSU, 1,923 witnessed WCU's first-ever Division I post-season victory.

All told, Western averaged 974 fans per game in 2006-07, second in the league.

This is the second-time in the past three seasons that WCU has ranked among the national leaders in turnaround. The Western Carolina women's soccer team, under head coach Tammy DeCesare, enjoyed an 8.5 game turnaround in the win-loss column, the best-ever in the Southern Conference, turning a 5-10-3 season in 2004 into an 18-6-0 mark during the 2005 SoCon Championship season. In addition to the mark ranking as the biggest turnaround in conference history, it also ranked first in the nation.

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