I was there. In Austin, in 1987. I was standing right next to a very good friend of mine who is a UT-Austin grad....and a packed house of 15K mostly UT fans. My friend had no idea the Lady Techsters were so good. Like many Lady Longhorn fans in those early days, he wasn't really familiar with the "power structure" of women's college basketball. This was all new to him, at least until his Lady Horns went undefeated and won the 1986 NCAA National Championship the previous year. After that, he thought his Lasdy Horns were invincible, and would have no problem dispatching the Lady Techsters.
It was literally the best women's college basketball game I've ever seen. The Lady Techsters hit 58.3% of their field goals, the 4th best performance in NCAA Final Four history, and a blistering
73.9% in the second half, missing only six of the 23 shots taken in the second half. Texas tried to wear down Teresa Weatherspoon, but she set an NCAA Final Four record with eleven assists, while putting in 19 points of her own.
That game probably ranks in my
overall Top 5 basketball games of all time,
regardless of gender. Like many of you, I've watched a lot of men's basketball game's over the last 40 years, but only a handful of mens games even come close to the intensity of that one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_N...all_Tournament
Yes, Tennessee won their 1st NCAA National Championship over LA Tech the following Sunday, when our Techsters failed to perform to our usual standards. I blame Leon Barmore for that loss. Leon did a horrible coaching job that day. I still remember many Lady Techster fans yelling at Leon to call a fricking timeout when Tennessee was making one of their big runs. But Leon sat on his butt and let them play on. It was as if he had mentally checked out. Very quickly the game was entirely out of reach.