One reason: The search committees for coaches are more diverse.

Fourteen of 16 schools received A's for their hires before the 2008-09 season, according to the second hiring report card in women's basketball that was released Wednesday by the Black Coaches and Administrators.

Colorado State, which hired Kristen Holt, was the only school to receive an F. The report attributed that to Holt, a former Colorado State assistant, being promoted without an external search.

One school, Idaho, was not included because of what the BCA described as an oversight that prevented it from collecting data.

Nine of the other 16 coaches who were hired were nonwhite. The report cited that development as encouraging particularly after grading college football, which has only seven black coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

"This sends a strong message to student-athletes when they can look to the sideline and see role models like Dawn Staley, Sylvia Crawley, Nikki Caldwell and Niya Butts, to name a few, now having the opportunity to guide their own programs," Georgia Tech men's basketball coach Paul Hewitt said in the report. "The effort of the schools should also be applauded for creating a more diverse selection process."

Twenty-four women's coaches, representing 20% of Division I schools, now have coaches of color. There are 20 black women, three black men and one Hispanic in Division I women's basketball.

Arizona, Ball State, Navy, North Texas, Temple, UCLA and Western Michigan received an A in all four of the categories — communication, search committee, candidates and the length of the search.

Alabama, which received a B, was the only school other than Colorado State not to receive an overall grade of A.

Also encouraging was the makeup of the search committees.

While the number of black coaching candidates brought in for interviews actually dropped, from 45% to 38% from 2006-07 to 2007-08, persons of color actually accounted for 35% of the search committee makeup. That was up from 30% last year.

The result: More black and Hispanic coaches (56 percent) were hired in 2008 than in 2007 (36 percent).

"By any standard of measurement, this hiring cycle in women's college basketball was even more successful than last year's study in terms of the number of people of color hired," the report said.