HBO scores big with women’s hoops documentary

It’s only appropriate to celebrate Women’s History Month by recognizing the trailblazers in women’s sports. Sure, women’s sports history should be remembered for more than just 31 days, but since they’ve relegated us to a measly month, let’s talk.

It’s been 37 years since the Cheryl Miller-led University of Southern California women’s basketball team claimed its first NCAA National Championship. That win (and the many that followed) didn’t just advance a program, it put a spotlight on women’s basketball in a way it hadn’t been before.

There was a time women’s basketball was only broadcast on television during the Final Four and national title games. The NCAA women’s tournament (which came after the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women’s tournaments) started in

1982. Now, every NCAA Division I women’s game and every round of March Madness is televised on some platform.

HBO Sports’ “Women of Troy” documentary tells the story of the Miller-led team of the 1980s and the impact she and her teammates had on the game years later. Miller and fellow former teammates Cynthia Cooper, Paula and Pamela McGee, Juliette Robinson and Rhonda Windham — along with famed college basketball coaches Kim Mulkey (Baylor), Sonja Hogg (Louisville Tech) and Geno Auriemma (UConn) share their memories in the hour-long feature.

“These women were trailblazers whose talent and charisma created new possibilities for women in basketball and in countless other pursuits,” Alison Ellwood, director of

Women of Troy, said in a statement.

Everyone in the documentary attests to that greatness and considers that USC style of play — hustling and attacking the basket — a turning point in the way the women’s game was played and why it gets the attention it does today.

That USC team dethroned the reigning national champion Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters for their first national title in 1983, then won it all again in ’84 and advanced to the title game again in ’86. USC went 31-2 that first season and 24-4 the following season. Miller, Cooper and Pam McGee all made USA basketball’s roster and won gold in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Miller was a superstar, but she and her fellow USC greats eventually realized after the Olympics and after college, there was no other outlet to shine unless they went overseas.

The way the game is covered now is largely due to the ’80s USC program and Miller’s rise as the greatest women’s basketball player of all time. In November of 1985 Sports Illustrated even named Miller the best player in college basketball, male or female.

“You spell women’s basketball M-I-L-L-E-R,” Miller once joked as a young USC player.