Former Kansas women’s basketball coach Marian Washington not elected to Hall of Fame

The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame announced 14 finalists in February. One of them didn’t make it into the Hall this year — former Kansas women’s coach Marian Washington.

She won 560 games in 31 seasons in Lawrence and her teams played in 11 NCAA tournaments.

The Kansas women’s program had three coaches in its first five years when Washington, who had enrolled at the school in a master’s program, was asked to coach the Jayhawks.

Washington started the women’s track and field program a year later and also served as athletic director for women’s programs for five years..

She was one of the first two African-American women to compete in basketball internationally, and became the first Black woman to coach a U.S. team in international play in 1982.

Washington, who also was a finalist last year, was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004, but induction into the Naismith Hall of Fame will have to wait.

Headlining the class that was announced at the men’s Final Four in Glendale, Ariz., on Saturday, are former NBA stars Vince Carter, Chauncey Billups, Walter Davis and Michael Cooper.

Former Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan was named, along with Dick Barnett, a former NBA veteran who led Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State) to three straight NAIA championships. Those games, in Kansas City, were the first by a historically black college.

Jerry West, who has been enshrined as a player, was elected as a contributor, along with former player and broadcaster Doug Collins.