| | With its five Final Four appearances and four national
championships in the decade, this should come as no surprise.
Tennessee was the top women's basketball team of the 1990s.
|  | | In December, Pat Summitt, right, receiving a hug from Niya Butts, became the 18th coach to win at least 700 games. Many of those wins came in the last decade. |
From Jan. 1, 1990, through Friday, Tennessee won more games and had a higher winning percentage than any Division I program in the
country, according to information compiled by the University of
Colorado.
Tennessee was an amazing 313-37 in the decade, a winning
percentage of .894. Ten of the Lady Vols' losses came in one
season, 1996-97, but they still won the national championship that
year.
Connecticut is second with a 290-47 record (.861) for the
decade, Louisiana Tech is third at 278-52 (.842) and Stanford
fourth at 269-51 (.841).
The rest of the top 10 reads Texas Tech, 268-56 (.827); Stephen
F. Austin, 255-57 (.817); Virginia 258-64 (.801); Rutgers, 210-55
(.792); Montana, 232-64 (.784) and Penn State 242-70 (.776).
Stanford led all teams with six Final Four appearances in the
'90s and won titles in 1990 and 1992. Tennessee won championships
in 1991, 1996, 1997 and 1998 and lost to Connecticut in the '95
finale.
Louisiana Tech made four trips to the Final Four during the
decade. Connecticut, Georgia and Virginia each had three
appearances and Purdue two. No one else made it more than once.
Hard-luck Buffs
Colorado coach Ceal Barry might need a sense
of humor after a series of defections and injuries left her with
one of the nation's youngest teams.
First, four players left the program last spring and transferred
to other schools. Then, sophomore Linda Lappe, the team's leading
scorer last season, broke a kneecap in the second game. Shortly
thereafter, freshman Kate Fagan was ruled out for the rest of the
season because of a stress fracture.
That left the Buffaloes with nine players, eight of them
freshmen or sophomores. Their oldest player is 6-foot-3 junior Kami
Carmann.
Colorado is struggling to return to the prominence it enjoyed
earlier this decade, when the Buffaloes made six straight NCAA
tournament appearances and twice got to within one game of the
Final Four. But they are not the youngest team in the country.
Arkansas-Little Rock, which has resumed its program this season
after dropping women's basketball 11 years ago, has only six
players -- all freshmen. No. 4 North Carolina State has seven
freshmen and four sophomores among its 14 players. Indiana has only
eight active players, six of them freshmen and sophomores.
All-century
Southwest Missouri State's Jackie Stiles was
selected the girls high school player of the century in Kansas by
the Topeka Capital-Journal.
Stiles scored a state record 3,603 points at Claflin, Kan.,
finishing with 752 points more than the No. 2 player on that list.
She scored 52 points in a state tournament game as a freshman and
also had games of 54, 55, 57, 61 and 71 points.
The newspaper chose Stiles over Wichita's Lynette Woodard, who
became a four-time Kodak All-American at Kansas.
Stiles, a junior, is averaging 26.9 points after scoring 24 in a
64-59 victory at Creighton on Thursday night.
Her high school coach, Greg Webb, remembers Stiles best for her
work ethic.
"I had to kick her out of practice a couple of times because
she'd try to steal the ball from every girl," Webb said. "She
couldn't tone it down enough to let us run a couple of plays."
Streaking gophers
Minnesota's 61-53 victory at Indiana on
Thursday night was the fifth straight for the Gophers -- no big deal
by Tennessee standards but something to crow about in Minneapolis.
It's the longest winning streak for Minnesota since it won five
straight in the 1993-94 season, which also was the Gophers' last
winning season. Three times since then, Minnesota won only four
games all season. The Gophers were 7-20 last season.
Minnesota (7-4) will try to continue its streak Sunday at home
against Michigan. The Gophers haven't won six straight since 1980-81.
Give 'em a break
Because the school is on the quarter system, Auburn's players were finished with final exams before those at most other schools.
So while most teams rarely played in mid-December, Auburn (No. 9 ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, No. 7 AP) was playing six games in 12 days. The reason: by cramming in so many games, the players could get five days off for Christmas.
"Being at Auburn now in my 21st year, I've learned that if I send
them home for three days, everybody's mad at me -- mom, dad, all the
players," Auburn coach Joe Ciampi said. "If I keep 'em home five
days, the bags are on the porch and they're ready for them to come
back." | |
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