If you go by things like winning seasons, wins, times to the post season, the women's basketball program has been the standard-bearer for the university.
And they've done it with three different coaches since the start of the new century. That's difficult to do and impressive that they could keep things going like that.
I suspect a big reason for this is because the area actually cares about women's basketball, that is noticed by recruits and is a great selling point for the coaching staff. I mean ISU actually averages more fans than most WAC, Mountain West and even some Pac-12 programs.
PBP