Legendary SIU women’s basketball coach Cindy Scott will be inducted into the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame on March 4 during the MVC Men’s Basketball Championship, the conference announced Wednesday.
The class also includes Carla Bennett (Drake, women’s basketball), Doug Elgin (MVC Commissioner), Tom Jackson (Louisville, football), Cliff Levingston (Wichita State, men’s basketball) and Charley Steiner (Bradley).
Scott coached 21 seasons at the collegiate level- all at Southern Illinois University- and remains the all-time winningest women’s basketball coach in MVC history in terms of career wins. She was also the winningest coach in Gateway Conference play with an overall record of 149-35 and her 199 career wins in Missouri Valley Conference games, meanwhile, are the second-most in Valley history.
A two-time MVC Coach of the Year, Scott’s Saluki teams posted 16-straight winning seasons, which included eight 20-win seasons and four 19-win seasons. Her Saluki teams won three Gateway Conference Championships and earned four NCAA Tournament berths, which included a Sweet 16 appearance in 1987. In 1994, Scott was inducted into the Saluki Sports Hall of Fame while she was still coaching and has had 11 of her players go on to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Scott was hired as head women’s basketball coach at Southern Illinois University in 1977 and didn’t need long to fashion the Salukis into a winner. In her second season in 1979, SIU won the Illinois AIAW State Tournament and compiled a 20-6 record. Four years later, she led the Salukis to their first postseason appearance since 1970 with a Women’s NIT berth. From 1983-1987, Scott put together the best run in school history, as the Salukis posted five-straight 20-win seasons, which included back-to-back Gateway Conference titles in 1986 and 1987 that culminated in Southern’s first-ever NCAA Tournament win in 1987. The ’86 and ’87 teams went a combined 38-0 in Gateway Conference play and garnered SIU’s first-ever AP ranking.
Scott was as respected off the court as she was on the court. In 1991, Scott was elected president of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) and served a four-year term from 1991-95. She also served on the USA Basketball staff selection committee and served on the NCAA Midwest Regional Advisory Committee. After SIU, Scott spent two-plus decades serving in a myriad of roles at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., which included Assistant Athletics Director, Senior Women’s Administrator and Title IX Coordinator. She retired from the position in the summer of 2020.
The St. Louis, Mo. native received her bachelor’s degree from Memphis State in 1975, where she played volleyball, basketball and tennis. She went on to earn her master’s degree from SIU in 1976.
