By Jim Caltagirone

For the Mirror

If the Penn State Lady Lions basketball program traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the cry on the floor would be “Sell!”

Granted, Carolyn Kieger was hired to rebuild a floundering program prior to the 2019-20 season, but the structure’s foundation still hasn’t settled.

One measure of a team’s progress is the conference record. In Kieger’s first five seasons, the Lady Lions were 25-66 in conference play, including last season’s 9-9 mark.

Through 14 Big Ten games this season, Penn State was 1-13.

That’s not progress. That’s regression.

The Nittany Lions’ program is another shipwreck in Big Ten waters this season, but that’s a topic for another day.

Pounding Bucknell, Canisius, Niagara and Monmouth at the start of this season only created false hope for Lady Lions’ boosters. Nine of Penn State’s 13 Big Ten losses through Thursday were by double figures.

No one in the fan base is dreaming of a national title. Despite the buzz that once surrounded the Lady Lions’ program, Penn State teams have advanced to only four NCAA regional finals and one Final Four.

The last NCAA Tournament appearance was in 2014. That type of futility by a marquee program at Penn State cannot be justified or rationalized.

When the Harvard and Columbia women’s basketball teams are receiving votes in the AP Top 25 poll and Penn State is not, there’s a problem.

By comparison, South Carolina, under head coach Dawn Staley, has advanced to the Final Four six times and won three national championships — all since 2015.

Thousands of empty seats at Lady Lions home games are evidence of tempered expectations.

In the much ballyhooed “Return to Rec” game against Maryland on Jan. 29, only 2,066 fans showed up in a venue that can accommodate 6,502.

To put that in perspective, the smallest crowd at a Big Ten home match for Lady Lions volleyball this past season was 2,209.

Even the largest home crowd for a women’s basketball game this season — 3,417 — was lost in the cavernous Bryce Jordan Center, which can seat over 15,000.

With an MGM-like cast populating the administration of Penn State Athletics, someone should be able to figure out how to create a homecourt advantage for a program that is struggling to regain relevance while women’s college basketball outside Happy Valley is fan-frenzied.

One would think that departments such as Brand Academy, Creative Content and Branding, Development and Enrichment, and Marketing and Fan Experience could develop something more enticing than recycled theme nights.

It’s unfortunate that the Lady Lions can’t move back to Rec Hall on a permanent basis.

Not only would it be more practical and fiscally responsible than playing at the Jordan Center, Rec Hall possesses the winning vibe generated by the defending national champion wrestling and women’s volleyball teams.

The folks in Intercollegiate Athletics’ Clinical and Performance Psychology Department would call that modeling.

Kieger’s grand redesign of Lady Lions basketball continues to fall short of the March Madness threshold. Maybe a change of address would help a little.

Attendance is a fairly accurate barometer of success and failure. Those who conduct the postmortem on another lost season should begin with a multiple-choice question on why home crowds are so sparse.

The answer will most definitely be all of the above.

Jim Caltagirone writes a monthly column for the Mirror.