Women's Hoops Hits AP Top 25 for First Time in a Decade

There's a Free Press article by Mick McCabe from 2007 titled "U-M Has History of Neglect" that provides some answers. I can find it online only in this archived version. Here's the first part of it:

Early in 1984, Michigan men's basketball coach Bill Frieder was on the phone with a question. "Should we give Sarah Basford a scholarship?" he asked. Why, I asked, would Frieder care about whether U-M gave a girl from Farmington Hills Mercy a basketball scholarship? And even if he did, why would he ask me? It turns out that Gloria Soluk, who was U-M women's coach then, didn't have the full complement of scholarships allowed by the NCAA. Athletic director Don Canham was a bottom-line guy, and he didn't pay much attention to women's athletics because it didn't make money. However, Canham was prepared to give Soluk all she wanted if she could have landed Pamela and Paula McGee, the 6-foot-3 twins from Flint Northern -- who were what Michigan State's 6-9 Allyssa DeHaan is today, times two. They grew up dreaming of playing at U-M. But Soluk was unable to get the McGees, who went on to help Southern Cal win a couple of national championships.

So Canham gave Soluk a certain number of scholarships -- if she wanted to exceed it, she had to plead for more. One day she bounded into Canham's office and said she had this all-stater from Mercy named Sarah Basford and needed an extra scholarship. Canham told her he would think about it. After Soluk left the office, Canham called in Frieder and said: "Call McCabe. Ask him if we should give this girl a scholarship."

That, in a nutshell, is why U-M has failed to be competitive in women's basketball for the better part of three decades, and why the Wolverines are looking for someone to replace Cheryl Burnett, who is gone after four disastrous seasons. Initially, U-M was just plain cheap -- I don't think even Pat Summitt could have been successful there.