[2] Robert Morris began its women's basketball program in 1970, and rattled off 11 straight winning seasons from 1978–79 to 1988–89.

Swalga led RMU to a second NEC tournament title in 1991, but the program then fell into a 16-season championship drought.

After winning just seven games over a three-season span, the Colonials hired Sal Buscaglia from Manhattan to turn around the program.

RMU went 3–24 in Buscaglia's first season, but rebounded with a 20–10 record in 2004–05 - marking the third-largest single-season turnaround in NCAA history.

In the classroom, the Colonials ranked in the top five of NCAA Division I women's basketball in cumulative grade point average, finishing second in 2016–17[12] and fourth in 2017–18.