The LSU women’s basketball program has only been around for 35 of LSU’s 150 years of existence.But the women’s basketball team has done one thing since the program began in 1975 — win.The Lady Tigers have posted 32 winning seasons, advanced to the NCAA tournament 20 times and played in five Final Fours in their short but storied history.Current LSU coach Van Chancellor said the women’s basketball program is among the best in women’s college hoops history.The Lady Tigers found national success in the program’s second season under the school’s first coach Jinks Coleman. LSU went 29-8 en route to a berth in the AIAW National Championship in 1977.Coleman led LSU for one and a half more seasons before giving up the reins to Barbara Swanner, who went 52-45 in three seasons.The Lady Tigers found stability when Sue Gunter was hired in 1982. Gunter steered the program to 442 wins in 22 seasons with 14 NCAA appearances.”Sue Gunter was an outstanding coach to win all those games,” Chancellor said. “Equally as important, she was a wonderful human being. To put it simply — if you can’t like Sue Gunter, then there is something wrong with you,” Gunter took a medical leave of absence in March 2004 after falling ill, and she died at the age of 66 on Aug. 4, 2005.”She built this on a great foundation, not on superficial stuff,” Chancellor said. “When she left, people could sustain the program. This program would have had a hard time to survive without her here.”Gunter finished her 40-year coaching career as the third women’s basketball coach to reach 700 wins with a 708-308 career record.Chancellor said the program advanced to another level when two-time National Player of the Year Seimone Augustus joined the Lady Tigers in 2002.”The program began to carry on to a new recognition,” Chancellor said. “Attendance improved; a lot of things changed.”Former All-American LSU guard and assistant coach Pokey Chatman filled the void left by Gunter during the 2003-04 season, which ended in the Final Four.Chatman brought LSU back to the Final Four two more times before leaving on March 7, 2007, amid allegations of inappropriate relations with a former player.Current assistant coach Bob Starkey became the interim coach before the NCAA tournament, and LSU made it to the Final Four for the fourth time.”The Final Four runs were unbelievable,” Chancellor said. “The coaches did a great job, and the players during that time were great.”Chancellor took the helm in 2007, and with the help of a veteran team led by All-American center Sylvia Fowles, the Lady Tigers advanced to their fifth consecutive Final Four.”Fowles did a great job of carrying on what Seimone began,” Chancellor said. LSU bowed out of the NCAA tournament in the second round this season, falling to Duke, 60-52. Chancellor will enter his fourth season as LSU’s coach next year after posting a 61-27 record in his first three years. —-Contact Michael Lambert at [email protected].