Two elite scorers, a pair of championship-winning WNBA coaches, a longtime referee and a trailblazing administrator will make up the next class inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame – based in Knoxville, Tennessee – announced the 2027 class on Thursday, Nov. 5. It includes WNBA all-time leading scorer Diana Taurasi, the legendary Iowa sharpshooter "Machine Gun" Molly Bolin Kazmer, WNBA coaches Sandy Brondello and Mike Thibault, refereeing veteran Dee Kantner and Dr. Judith Holland, the former director of women’s athletics at UCLA.
The induction ceremony for these six inductees will be held Saturday, June 26, 2027 in Knoxville.
"For nearly thirty years, the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame has honored the greatest of the game,
and we are thrilled to welcome these six inductees into the distinguished seats of the Hall of Fame," Michelle Marciniak, CEO of the WBHOF said in a statement. "Selection for this esteemed recognition celebrates the hard work, success, and record-breaking journeys for those to join this global class. We cannot wait to welcome the Class of 2027."
Here’s a closer look at each inductee:
Diana Taurasi
The WNBA’s all-time scoring leader spent her entire career with the Mercury and won three championships. One of the best women’s basketball players ever, Taurasi was an All-WNBA selection 14 times and led the league in scoring five times. She’s also the WNBA’s all-time leader in 3-pointers and free throws made and probably the league’s greatest trash talker.
Prior to her professional career in the WNBA, the native of Glendale, California played at UConn where she became one of the best players to come through Geno Auriemma’s storied program. Taurasi led UConn to three national championships, was twice the Most Outstanding Player at the Final Four, and was the consensus National Player of the Year in 2003.
Taurasi owns more Olympic gold medals than any other basketball player in the history of the event with six. She also has three FIBA World Cup gold medals, and while playing overseas in Russia and Turkey she won six EuroLeague championships.
Molly Bolin Kazmer
Nicknamed "Machine Gun Molly," Bolin Kazmer was arguably the greatest to have ever play the 6-on-6 version of girls and women’s basketball that was popular for decades in states like Texas, Oklahoma and Iowa. As a senior at Moravia High School in Iowa, Bolin averaged 54.8 points per game.
She then went on to play collegiately at Grand View University, where she adjusted to the 5-on-5 game. As a 17-year-old, she was selected to participate in the final tryouts of the 1976 U.S. women’s basketball Olympic team. Two years later, Bolin became the first player to sign with the Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL), joining her home team, the Iowa Cornets. The league was short-lived, lasting just three years, but Bolin was an all-star in each one, leading the league in scoring and was its co-MVP in 1980. She set the league’s single-game scoring record with 55 points.
Bolin was one of the first mainstream women’s basketball stars, highlighted in publications such as Sports Illustrated and the Washington Post with photoshoots and feature stories. She also appeared in a Spalding commercial with Larry Bird.
Sandy Brondello
One of the most successful head coaches in WNBA history, Brondello has guided two teams to championships, winning with the Phoenix Mercury in 2014 and with the New York Liberty in 2024. She was named WNBA Coach of the Year in 2014 and has been selected to coach in the All-Star game three times.
Brondello is also an accomplished international coach, guiding her native Australia to a bronze medal at the 2024 Olympics in Paris and medaling twice at FIBA World Cups.
As a player, Brondello was a WNBA All-Star in 1999 and owns three Olympic medals playing for Australia.
She is now the head coach of the Toronto Tempo.
Mike Thibault
Until Cheryl Reeve passed him last season, Thibault was the WNBA’s all-time leader in wins as a head coach. He was a head coach in the league from 2003 through 2022, splitting his career with the Connecticut Sun and Washington Mystics. Thibault has earned three WNBA Coach of the Year awards and coached an Elena Delle Donne-led Mystics team to a championship in 2019.
As an assistant coach, Thibault earned two NBA championship rings with the Los Angeles Lakers in the early 1980s. He has also twice been an assistant for the Team USA women in years where they won gold medals, working under Anne Donovan in 2008 and Reeve in 2024.
Thibault has been the head coach of the Belgian national team since 2025, leading the team to a gold medal in EuroBasket and to the quarterfinals of the 2026 FIBA World Cup.
Dee Kantner
It’s possible that no one has officiated more women’s basketball games than Kantner, who worked as a referee for 40 years across women’s college basketball, the WNBA and NBA.
In the college game, Kantner officiated 26 Final Fours and 16 national championship games before retiring last season. In the regular season, she often worked high-profile games in some of the most competitive conferences in the country – the SEC, ACC and Big Ten – and officiated those conference championships too.
A native of Pennsylvania and graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Kantner and Violet Palmer became the first two women referees in any major U.S. professional men’s sport when the NBA hired them in 1997. Kantner would work 247 NBA games across five seasons. She also spent 11 years as the supervisor of officials in the WNBA.
Kantner also refereed basketball at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, and the FIBA World Championships in 1994 and 1998. Kantner, who is on the Board of Directors for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund and a certified beekeeper, now works at ESPN as a rules analyst on women’s basketball games.
Dr. Judith Holland
Holland will enter the Hall of Fame as a contributor. She is credited with building UCLA women's athletics from the ground up. She was the Bruins’ director of women’s athletics from 1975-1981 and handed out the school's first full athletic scholarship for a woman. That would go to Ann Meyers, who led the Bruins to a pair of national championships in the pre-NCAA Tournament era for women’s basketball.
As AIAW president and past chair of the NCAA Women's Basketball Committee, Holland helped bring the women's game to a national stage.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Diana Taurasi headlines 2027 Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame class
